It looks like Bottomless Pond is no longer living up to its name and that is causing Mark Hoyles endless headaches.
Hoyles owns a cabin in the area that began to heavily flood at the end of May, half-submerging his and other properties on the shoreline.
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A few days ago, it looked like the estimated 15 or 20 feet of extra water was starting to recede. However, a marker Hoyles placed on his property to gauge the water level was underwater when he last checked it.
“I couldn’t tell by how much the marker was under,” he said. “I could just tell that it wasn’t above the water anymore.”
Hoyles said there is about three feet of water inside his cabin.
Bottomless Pond is suspected to have some sort of underwater drainage mechanism. It is believed that a heavy rainstorm in January may have inundated the area with water and possibly sediment and debris that have somehow blocked that drainage.
It’s been a frustrating couple of weeks for Hoyles, whose brother’s cabin next to his is also severely flooded. He doubts his insurance will cover this sort of overland flooding.
The road accessing the cabin is currently not passable, making it difficult to get in to try and salvage what he can.
“I’m not going to pay someone to do the work needed on the road when there are more cabins in behind us that no one can get to right now either,” he said, noting there should be a group effort or some form of government help to open the road.
Hoyles has been in touch with the provincial government, which has been monitoring the situation, but no direct help has been forthcoming yet.
If the water does recede, Hoyles isn’t sure what he will do next.
“I’m not going to being any big rush to put money into anything else there, not knowing what’s going to happen next year,” he said. “If I have to go somewhere else and replace everything, that’s going to cost me anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000.”
This predicament is also not likely going to help the resale value of the property, should it be decided to leave it.
The Department of Municipal Affairs and Environment said Monday that it assessed water levels at Bottomless Pond on May 31, and determined the higher water levels in the area were due to multiple factors, including runoff associated with snowmelt, heavy rainfall and ground saturation.
The department said it expects the water level to recede with time.
