It is an unprecedented situation at Jackfish Lake.
The Resort Village of Cochin has seen extensive damage due to ice from the lake being pushed up onto the shoreline and into people鈥檚 property across the village.
The damage is 鈥渟ignificant and extensive,鈥� said Mayor Harvey Walker of the Resort Village of Cochin.
Walker said there is damage and destruction to decks, boat lifts, outbuildings and also to residences being pushed off their foundations. The shoreline 鈥� meaning the sand, dirt and rock along the shore 鈥� has in some spots been pushed up as high as seven or eight feet.
Walker says that for the first time in the memory of anyone he鈥檚 been able to talk to that the ice cap on the lake has spread horizontally, pushing ice onto the west shore of the village.
Usually in a normal year, once the weather warms up the ice expands by creating an ice ridge or ice jack out on the lake, with the ice shoved up vertically.
But because of the high water level over last summer, and extensive severe winds from the west, the 鈥渟horeline and the lake bottom near the shore were eroded, resulting in water being deeper at the shoreline than in normal years.鈥�
In a normal year, the shoreline would be shallow and the ice would form and stick to the bottom of the lake. But this year, there was 鈥渨ater left under the ice after the ice cap was formed along the edge of the lake, so when the weather got warm, rather than relieving the pressure vertically it relieved the pressure horizontally.鈥�
The result is ice being shoved up onto the shoreline. There is also concern about what could happen when it warms up even more.
Walker said that once the ice cap becomes a floating entity on the lake, 鈥渋t鈥檚 going to exacerbate the entire situation.鈥�
Walker said he has been in touch with their MLA for Cut Knife-Turtleford, Ryan Domotor, to intervene with the province to seek disaster relief. The mayor said Domotor has been in touch with the minister鈥檚 office and the expectation was he might receive a response soon, possibly as early as Tuesday.
An issue that has emerged is that the disaster relief program doesn鈥檛 contemplate this kind of event, but Walker said 鈥渨e鈥檙e asking the provincial government on our own and through Ryan Domotor to change the regulations to allow relief for this event.鈥� The Resort Village is encouraging residents to be in touch with the Premier鈥檚 Office on the situation.
As for removing the ice from their properties, residents will need to get an emergency permit from the Water Security Agency to remove ice from the shoreline. If they get that permit from the WSA to remove ice (not including removing rock, sand or stone etc.) the Resort Village will then automatically issue a development permit to allow that to happen.
If residents seek to do more than remove the ice, such as removing the rock, sand or stone, they will then need to get a regular permit from the WSA and also from the Resort Village, but that process will be longer.
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