The province's process to prevent a repeat of last June's disastrous flooding came to the region last week with meetings between Red Deer River basin municipalities, as well as an update from an engineering company contracted to deliver a report to the Alberta government by the end of this month.
A meeting was held with representatives from the Town of Sundre and the counties of Red Deer, Mountain View and Clearwater on Feb. 28 at the Red Deer County administration building.
And then on March 4, officials from the Town of Sundre and Mountain View County met with Darwin Durnie, a principal with Stantec Consulting Ltd., which has been hired by the province to provide an engineering assessment and recommendations for flood mitigation options for the Red Deer River basin.
Angela Aalbers, Division 5 councillor with Mountain View County, said the Feb. 28 meeting was an opportunity for the four municipalities to come together as a “collaborative group.
“We got together to discuss a way forward plan. It was to look at what issues the four municipalities had in regards to flood mitigation, and that was to look at short, medium and long term,” said Aalbers, who attended both meetings. “The main deliverable at that meeting was to contact the government and say, ‘We as four municipalities would like to sit down with Stantec, the engineering firm commissioned by you, and have an opportunity in the same room to go through that report with Stantec in that draft form, and make sure all four municipalities are happy with what is being proposed with the government.'
“It is very clear from Minister Hughes that engineering report is going to be a very key document in how the government is going to look at flood mitigation along the Red Deer River basin,” she added.
Last January, Ken Hughes, the provincial minister of Municipal Affairs, announced the government was hiring three engineering firms, including Stantec, to study flood mitigation options for the Athabasca and Red Deer rivers.
Stantec officials declined to comment on the status of the study but Jason Penner, public affairs officer with the provincial Flood Recovery Task Force, which is leading the province's recovery from last June's floods, said community consultation is a key part of the process.
“They (engineering firms) are reviewing and assessing mitigation options but part of the process is speaking with municipalities to not only find out what the risks are in the communities but also community preferences, and they need to get some insight into local planning and things like that as well,” said Penner, adding the province has not seen a draft report from Stantec.
Aalbers said the March 4 meeting in Sundre with Stantec was an information-gathering session to ensure the engineering company has as much information as it needs to create a full and comprehensive report.
“I think Stantec has done a great job in collecting as much information as they can,” said Aalbers, adding she has not seen a draft report. “We would like to see a mitigation strategy going forward on a long-term basis of how all of the municipalities are going to deal with the flood issues potentially along the Red Deer basin.”
Meanwhile, when Stantec does deliver its report it will first go to the task force, which is under the umbrella of the provincial ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.
Penner said the government will then move to the next phase and create an action plan based on the recommendations from the report.
“It is hard to comment on that until you know what is going to be recommended or not recommended until you see the report,” said Penner, adding flood mitigation reviews are also being done for the Athabasca River basin, as well as for the rivers in the south, including the Bow, Elbow, Highwood, Sheep, South Saskatchewan and Oldman.
