To the Editor,

Hydro-Québec was surprised to be blamed during a meeting organized by Ontario Power Generation, as reported in this article:  https://westcarletononline.com/opg-flood-meeting-same-old-speech/.

According to the article, Mr. Gerry Blyth, from Constance Bay, says Hydro-Québec “dramatically cinched up access to several of their websites’ important flow and level data sources (…) a shame, they’re not playing nice.”

 This is not true. All the information asked for by Mr. Blyth – or anyone else – can be found of Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board ‘s website, http://ottawariver.ca/. The information on this site is more complete than ever. Moreover, the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board repeatedly offered to discuss the subject with Mr. Blyth, without success so far.

In the same article Mr. Blyth seems to pretend: “Hydro-Québec’s request to divert water in to the Ottawa River to delay it hitting the Carillon Dam (…) contributed to 2017 flooding.”

Again, this is not correct.

The Barrière Dam, at the Cabonga Reservoir (350 km north of Ottawa), was opened on May 4, 2017.  Mr. Blyth seem to believe the May 7 rise in water level in Britannia, was caused by this opening of the Barrière Dam. Mr. Blyth must know the water coming out of the Barrière Dam takes three weeks to reach the Britannia site.

As a result, when this water arrived on May 25 (three weeks later), the water level had already dropped by more than one metre at Britannia station, from its May 7 maximum. This decision to open the Barrière Dam was taken by river experts from both sides of the Ottawa River, to limit the flooding. In the same context, the decision would be the same today.

Sincerely,
Francis Labbé,
Hydro-Québec affaires publiques et médias