Dear Editor,

Every spring there are concerns about the annual spring run-off.

It is said this year’s snow pack was in some areas one third more than usual. If we had got some warm days too fast, and then a good gully-washer rain, floods could well have been a very big problem.

I am sure the older generation remembers the devastating flood of 1948. It was not pretty.

A sturgeon was found flopping in a large puddle of water at Matsqui, at least a half mile from the river, after the water level dropped.

Up and down the river one sees sand bars. This suggests the river bed is nowhere near deep enough for the water to pass harmlessly through.

Out will come the cry that we need to raise the dikes. That will take an enormous amount of resources, and that is not really the answer, for in time, it will have to be done again.

Dredging will create a huge amount of sand that can be used for back fill or building.

Robert W. Stirling, Maple Ridge