Final Report - Vulnerability Committee

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National Engineering Vulnerability Assessment of Public Infrastructure to Climate ChangeState of Knowledge Assessment5. Climate change affecting dam management andoperation in CanadaDam owners and operators are aware of the changing climate process and can often observe manychanges in the river flows, temperature, ice cover and other related extreme events. This section refersto some testimonials gathered from dam operators and owners (public and private) regarding climatechange and dam operations.5.1 Interview of Private Dam OwnersThe testimony of two private dam owners has been collected in order to understand their means toassess and react to climate change in the day-to-day operation of their water retaining and generatinginstallations.Mr. Denis Ratté, Eastern Canada Region Business Manager – Hydro division at Algonquin PowerSystems Inc. operates and manages 19 hydropower dams located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebecand Newfoundland. Mr. Ratté said that global warming and climate change does not have a direct impacton day-to-day operation and management of the dams. He has witnessed more extreme events (floodand drought) in the past 10 years, but the way to deal with those freshets and dry episodes is similar aspreviously. Mr Ratté indicated the first step is to gain good understanding of your installations and theway to operate them in critical situations. Furthermore, it is important to use all the tools available in orderto predict the river behaviour (ex: hydrometric and meteorological instruments made available byEnvironment Canada, probes, real-time instruments, etc.). Finally, a good communication protocol isrequired to ensure protection for operators and people living downstream of the installations. If climatechanges are to modify magnitude of flood events or dry periods, studies and assessments will be done toknow the real impacts and measures will be taken to act properly when such events happen.Mr. Jean-François Corbeil, Hydro Sector Manager at Kruger Energy operates and manages5 hydropower dams located in the province of Quebec, the state of New-York, as well as the state ofVirginia. He mentioned that climate change would not modify the safety aspects or the way to operate thedams in the short terms. His key point is to improve the hydrological model and including the most recentevents and data in order to better understand your river system as Mother Nature is evolving and youhave to compose with it.5.2 Interview of Public Dam OwnersMs. Patricia Clavet is manager at the Public Dams Management Division at the Centre d’ExpertiseHydrique du Québec (CEHQ), a provincial agency which operates and manages more than 200 publicdams in the province of Quebec. She acknowledges observing more extreme hydrologic events thanbefore, and those events mostly occurred out of the “normal hydrologic cycle”. These “out of cycle”events are for example high flood events in late November / early December causing serious frazilproblems for hydraulic infrastructures. The frequency of tropical storms affecting north-eastern United-States have a direct effect of the southern watersheds in Quebec, and also on public dams located in thisarea said Ms. Clavet. The CEHQ is looking at changing its management and operation plans as theyneed to adapt and allocate more resources for operations during times of the year where operations usedto be slower.Since early 2009, several projects related to climate changes affecting dam safety have been undertakenwith collaboration of agencies such as Ouranos. Ms Clavet explained that they are fairly early in theirstudy process and that results should be available in 2010. Following these studies, the CEHQ will testnew procedures based on results found and implement them as required. Ms. Clavet concluded by sayingthat they are currently in a reflection mode in order to find and communicate quickly any risks on thewater retaining structures. They will enter into an adaptation phase which will include discussions withlocal stakeholders on the water management plan, but in keeping in mind that their first priority is thesafety of the dam structure.GENIVAR 7
National Engineering Vulnerability Assessment of Public Infrastructure to Climate ChangeState of Knowledge AssessmentBC Hydro is a large public utility that owns and manages many high consequence dams in BC. This utilityhas an elaborate Policy on Dam Safety, as well as on Emergency Preparedness. According to TerryOswell, P. Eng. Dam Safety Program Engineer, BC Hydro is actively pursuing its Dam Safety program.However, climate change is not part of the picture as they are focusing on their Dam Safety Programwhich is based on the CDA Guidelines.In a similar way, Hydro-Quebec is not currently addressing the effect of climate change on its dams.According to Jean-Paul Morin, manager, Dam Safety, Hydro-Québec is taking a step by step approachaddressing the climate change issue. The first step is their involvement and financial support of Ouranos,a research group studying climate change scenarios. Once climate change models are fully developedand understood, Hydro-Québec will, in a second stage, conduct case studies on specific dams to verifyeffects from climate change.Parks Canada Agency (PCA) owns and operates many small dams across Canada. Most of these damsare located in Ontario on the Rideau Canal and on the Trent Waterway. While PCA is a Public agency,contrary to the large dam owner, it has limited technical resources to support Dam Safety. Nevertheless,PCA has just recently put together its Policy on Dam Safety. This policy is fairly similar to the CDA 2007Dam Safety Guidelines although it does have some differences on design criteria for certain higherconsequence dams. According to André Roy, P. Eng coordinator for Dam Safety, climate change has notbeen included in their recent Policy and is not part of their short term activities as they are focused onimplementing the Dam Safety Program.6. ConclusionsClimate science is an ever adapting field and more information is becoming readily available in attemptsto project future changes in climate. It is anticipated that there will be more extreme meteorological eventsin the future.While dam owners are aware of this climate changing situation some are reviewing available data in orderto react properly when extreme events occur. However, in most cases, few dam owners have directlyaddressed climate change and the vulnerability of their dams to such phenomenon. This could change inthe future as some are starting to focus on this issue. It will probably be a few years down the road beforepublished results are made available to the industry as to how these organizations are adapting to climatechange.GENIVAR 8
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Page 77 and 78: Flood Control Dam Water Resources I
Page 119 and 120: Appendix AState of Knowledge Assess
Page 121 and 122: National Engineering Vulnerability
Page 127: National Engineering Vulnerability
Page 135 and 136: Appendix CRisk Assessment WorkshopP
Page 137 and 138: Introduction - TRCANational Enginee
Page 139 and 140: Summary of PIEVC ProtocolNational E
Page 141 and 142: Summary of PIEVC ProtocolAt each st
Page 143 and 144: Summary of PIEVC ProtocolStep 3: Ri
Page 145 and 146: Summary of PIEVC ProtocolStep 3: Ri
Page 147 and 148: Summary of PIEVC ProtocolStep 4: En
Page 149 and 150: Overview of Dams Review Current “
Page 151 and 152: General location of the damsNG. Ros
Page 153 and 154: G. Ross Lord damInfrastructure Comp
Page 155 and 156: G. Ross Lord damInfrastructure Comp
Page 157 and 158: Claireville damInfrastructure Compo
Page 159 and 160: Claireville damInfrastructure Compo
Page 161 and 162: Climate Analysis & Projections - Ov
Page 163 and 164: Climate Analysis & Projections - De
Page 165 and 166: Climate Analysis & Projections - De
Page 167 and 168: Climate Analysis & Projections - Pr
Page 169 and 170: Appendix EFinalized Risk Assessment
Page 171 and 172: Appendix GComparison of Existing an
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Final Report - Vulnerability Committee

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