Dike, lake, more lots planned for Turtle Crossing campground

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2018 (2702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Considering himself to be a localized flooding expert, Turtle Crossing campground co-owner Mark Kovatch says he has about had it with his property flooding with Assiniboine River water.

So, he’s joining his wife and co-owner Joan in doing something about it.

Last month, they submitted a zoning application to the City of Brandon to build a ring dike around their property, situated at 4100 Grand Valley Rd.

At an estimated cost of $1.2 to $1.5 million, they also plan on increasing the number of camping and seasonal lots available from their pre-flood number of 165 to 275 to help recoup costs.

It’s a project Kovatch said he’d like to get moving on as soon as possible, but more realistically they won’t break ground for at least a couple of years.

Even so, Kovatch said the project has been a long time coming.

Now in their 11th season owning and managing the campground, they’ve faced two disastrous flood seasons, including the 2011 event that wiped out everything, forcing them to rebuild from scratch.

While not as physically disastrous, the 2014 flood that swept over the Turtle Crossing property impacted the number of seasonal clients they were able to bring in during subsequent years, with people losing confidence in the park’s ability to remain open.

Despite these setbacks, Kovatch said they took it in stride.

Flooding wasn’t new to the property, and they knew what they were getting into when they purchased it in 2007.

The City of Brandon owned the property as Curran Park for much of its history, until divesting of it in 2001 as a result of rising labour costs and cleanup expenditures that came as a result of flooding.

Kovatch said they’ve had these diking plans in mind for years, but that their two years of floods set them back.

“The floods just put us on a detour,” he said. “It hasn’t changed our plan, just made it a bit longer to get there.”

The flood of 2011 was particularly problematic, in that it forced them to rebuild the entire campground.

Even this had a silver lining, he said.

Built in the 1970s, the campground’s sites were too small for modern campers, a problem their rebuild in the wake of 2011 flooding helped them resolve.

Another silver lining comes by way of the knowledge they’ve gained as a result of these flood events, which Kovatch said reaffirmed their idea that a dike would do the trick.

“It just gives you more confidence in moving forward with your plans,” he said.

Their plans for the property remain long term, including aspirations to host community events.

A man-made lake would be constructed, with the dirt pulled out of the ground used in their dike.

With a dike ensuring the campground’s long-term viability, Kovatch said he expects to see the campground shift to a more year-round focus, and that a “lineup of people” are already waiting in the wings for sites.

“It’s such a fantastic spot, we don’t want it to go to waste,” Kovatch said. “It’s not being used to its full potential.”

Although some degree of flooding has been an almost annual event at Turtle Crossing in recent years, this year appears to be an exception.

Although Kovatch relocated some campers out of the park as a precautionary measure, he said he did not expect to see any flooding take place this spring.

City of Brandon director of risk and emergency management Brian Kayes said he doesn’t expect to see any flooding along the city’s stretch of Assiniboine River this spring.

He said that while officials are waiting for river levels to peak this year, he didn’t expect them to rise by more than approximately a foot.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB