Local state of emergency declared over risk of dam bursting in B.C. Interior

The Canadian Press

· Posted: Oct 09, 2025 12:21 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 12

UPDATE — Oct. 12, 2025: The evacuation alert has since been rescinded.

A determination territory successful the British Columbia Interior has declared a authorities of section exigency arsenic an illegal dam threatens to burst.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has already issued an evacuation alert for 14 properties down stream from the dam and says the exigency declaration volition let it to instrumentality enactment to mitigate the flood risk.

The territory said connected Tuesday that the unauthorized, human-made dam on Fadear Lake could neglect and make "an uncontrolled merchandise of water" into Fadear Creek, successful an country astir 45 kilometres northeast of Kamloops. 

Residents successful homes on Fadear Creek were told connected Monday to beryllium acceptable to permission rapidly owed to the imaginable “imminent” nonaccomplishment of the dam.

The territory says the section authorities of exigency is successful spot for the Lower North Thompson area. 

• 14 properties successful B.C. Interior connected evacuation alert arsenic dam threatens to fail

It says the declaration let authorities to usage exigency powers to bid residents from their homes, to halt question and let them to participate backstage lands erstwhile lives oregon properties are astatine risk.

"This declaration enables punctual co-ordination of enactment oregon peculiar regularisation of persons oregon spot to support the health, safety, oregon payment of radical oregon to bounds harm to property," said a connection from the district. 

Colton Davies, a spokesperson for Thompson-Nicola Regional District, said connected Tuesday the dam is astatine the northbound extremity of Fadear Lake wherever it drains into Fadear Creek. 

Davies said a mates of culverts wrong the dam have been blocked, causing the water level to rise, sparking concerns that the h2o volition spill implicit the apical of the dam. 

He said it's unclear who built the dam. 

"It's a hard water to access, but wherever there's a will, there's a mode perchance for idiosyncratic to person accessed this," Davies said.

The Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said successful a connection connected Tuesday that the apical precedence is keeping radical safe, and an technologist was contracted to measure the concern and hole a program for adjacent steps.