Department of Public Safety spokesman Geoffrey Downey

New Brunswick monitoring potential for flooding as river levels begin to rise

New Brunswick monitoring potential for flooding as river levels begin to rise

New Brunswick officials are advising people in flood-prone areas of the province to pay attention as the water levels of the Saint John River are on the rise. The spillway gates at the Mactaquac Dam, near Fredericton, will need to be opened soon because of the rising water, Department of Public Safety spokesman Geoffrey Downey said Monday. “The generators are running at max, and that’s a pretty good sign of how things are trending,” he said in an interview. “In the five-day forecast it’s going from a little over 81,000 cubic feet (of water) per second up to 126,000 cubic feet per second.”