A six-year concerted effort to help prevent overland flooding in Sundre changes direction this week with construction starting on a $2.4 million engineered solution.
“Everything's in place. I still can't believe it. We got the last approval last Friday,” Ron Baker, the municipality's director of operations, told town councillors at a committee of the whole meeting last Monday night.
With all required authorization from four federal and provincial government departments, the much anticipated riverbank stabilization project gets off the ground.
Seven, 20 to 40 metre long rock structures are being built out into the Red Deer River bed from its west bank near Riverside RV Park.
“They'll deflect the flow along the shore,” said Baker. They look like little dams.”
The political hot potato has been a long-time coming, said Sundre Mayor Annette Clews.
“It would have been nice to have started this back when we asked for it,” said Clews, adding she's thankful work is now beginning.
After the river spilled its banks in 2005 flooding a portion of Sundre, municipal officials, private citizens, and organizations have worked tirelessly at coming up with flood abatement solutions and lobbying various levels of government for approval and funding to get the job done.
“It's extremely important. When the flood of 2005 occurred the province hadn't recognized it as an ongoing disaster,” said Clews.
As the river continued to erode its banks near the RV park, municipal officials and private residents mounted an on-going campaign.
The chamber of commerce started a group called Save Our Sundre to lobby for funding and approvals.
In 2007, engineering firm Stantec prepared a Preliminary Engineering Report to study the erosion problem in the immediate vicinity of Riverside RV Park.
The report included three options for erosion protection.
“We couldn't armour the whole thing. That would have been too expensive,” said Baker.
Another study was completed by Stantec for the town in 2010. Town officials chose option two in the report as the most effective option for addressing the issues with the river.
Further changes to the alignment of the river and erosion on the west bank occurred in 2009 requiring further study and assessment to be undertaken.
The provincial government agreed in 2010 to foot the bill for the chosen option with a $2.4 million grant.
The project has been downsized in recent months to stay within the $2.4 million budget, said Baker.
Instead of 12 spurs, only seven will be built.
“It increases your risk. If we could have put in 12 it would have been better than seven,” said Baker, adding the plan was redesigned to make the most out of the remaining spurs. The reduction included taking out three unprotected spurs.
Clews said the newly engineered plan should work just fine. Provincial government officials have been made aware of the reduction in number of spurs, she said.
“They are aware that we have to downsize so they are aware of the risk. The Town of Sundre sees it as it is the risk of the provincial government because it is their river.”
Work is expected to get underway this week with the possible construction of one of the spurs.
Thirteen thousand tonnes of limestone has already been stockpiled for use in the project which will span about 1.3 kilometres.
Baker is holding out hope the weather stays cool for the duration of the month long project to make work go smoother.
“This is the best solution and that's all we can hope for,” said Clews.
See next week's newspaper for a look at the environmental impacts of the riverbank stabilization project on fish, wildlife, and vegetation.
