Mountain View County will host a public open house at the Sundre Legion Hall this Thursday evening to share information on a possible flood protection berm upstream of Sundre and to gather public input into possible funding options.“The intention is to give an opportunity for residents whose property would be protected by a berm on the Red Deer to have an opportunity to say whether they would be willing to contribute towards part of the cost,” said Reeve Bruce Beattie.High water on the Red Deer River this past spring flooded public and private land west of Sundre.County council has not passed any motion to move forward with the construction of an upgraded berm system.During the August 22 council meeting, councillors were told that the county's operational services department has been working with Matrix Solutions to prepare cost estimates for a berm upstream of Sundre.A fully armoured berm could cost an estimated $5.4 million, while one with limited armouring could cost $1.2 million, councillors heard.Either option would see a berm constructed on the north bank of the Red Deer River southwest of Coyote Creek RV Resort and Golf Course, according to a map provided by administration.Also during the August 22 meeting, councillors requested adminstration bring back information on three things: More details about the limited armoured berm; the tax revenue from the properties that would be protected by the berm; and how long it would take to get provincial approval for the project.During last week's council meeting, CAO Tony Martens presented the requested items.“As far as the actual cost of doing that 3.9 kilometres of berm that is left to be done is $1.209 million,” said Martens. “Of that, $110,000 is an allowance for armouring. That also would include the fees for the engineer.“They (engineers) broke down their part of the work into different parts. They have to first do the design plans and they would submit those plans to Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. They would do a detailed design and tendering. Then there would be construction monitoring, and there would be an after-built report at the end of it. So the total cost of that is $49,600, and that is included in the $1.209 million cost.”Regarding the time to get permits from Alberta Environment SRD, he said, “What they are guessing is two to six months. It can't happen overnight. First of all they are going to require more detailed designs than the portion (of berm) we did last year because it is a longer berm and it's going to affect more people. Because it affects more people, there will be more opportunity for people to express concerns.“Before Alberta Environment issues any permits, any concerns that are raised by anybody, if they deem those concerns valid, will have to be addressed by the county. So to say it is going to happen in two months, I'd say that is going to be pushing it. It might be less than six months, but I want to be totally honest and say this isn't going to happen overnight.”Martens suggested that the county move ahead right away in making a permit application and in having updated plans prepared.“If I was going to make one suggestion and if council was going to make any motions on it, I would suggest you might want to think about engaging our engineers to update the plans right now and then to submit an application, because if we get approval from the residents to go ahead and if they approve some kind of a cost-sharing scheme and council approves this thing, if we wait until after the public meeting and then do all of that we're already behind the eight ball a bit,” he said.The tax revenue from the properties that would be protected by the berm is $124,000, he said.Following Marten's comments, Coun. Duncan Milne put forward a motion to update the berm design plans, at a cost $15,750, and to submit a permit application.Speaking to the motion, Coun. Paddy Munro said, “Are we giving up on the province? Let me be absolutely clear; I don't like the idea that we have to pay and I really don't like the idea that the residents have to pay.“Is the province bailing on this whole project? If we have to go to Edmonton and sit down with the premier, then I would suggest we do that. We cannot let the province off the hook.”CAO Marten added, “In my opinion, it shouldn't even be the county's role to do this. The river is a provincial resource and they (provincial government) should be dealing with this and it shouldn't have to be the county.”Munro said at this week's Sundre open house “one thing I'm really going to be stressing is that the community has got to get more active with this. We need help lobbying the province.”Milne's motion passed unanimously.
