Town awaiting riverbank grant funding application
By Dan Singleton
Round Up staff
The Town of Sundre is making some preliminary preparations for riverbank stabilization work as the municipality awaits the official grant application for $2.4 million in provincial funding announced last month, said CAO Ryan Leuzinger.
“We are still waiting for the grant application to be sent to us,” he said Thursday. “We have already been meeting with the engineers, taking that step.”
Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner announced the funding at a press conference a month ago. At the time he said the riverbank erosion represented a public safety concern.
The funds will be used to construct bank protection armouring along the west bank of the river where heavy erosion has been eating away at the bank for the past several years.
It will be up to the Town of Sundre to decide when construction will begin after the grant money is made available.
The erosion has been threatening trailers at the Riverside RV Park as well as water and wastewater infrastructure in the area.
Sundre Mayor Annette Clews said she would like to see the riverbank rehabilitation work be completed before the spring runoff in 2012.
The $2.4 million construction will be based on the findings of the $85,000 River Engineering Study and Design of the River Bank Protection Works of the Red Deer River at Riverside RV Park study conducted earlier by Stantec, at the request of town council.
That report put forward four options for remediation of the threatened west side riverbank in southwest Sundre; the options range in price from $1.58 million to $2.75 million.
Town council has already accepted the option that calls for rock riprap bank protection from downstream of the current gabion protection works to the Prairie Creek where it enters the Red Deer River.
Town councillor Michael Baird said last week that the town and the province have been in contact with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) regarding the riverbank stabilization project.
The DFO will need to give approval for any work that is undertaken in the river.
The town has also been in contact with Wild Rose Conservative MP Blake Richards, he said.
Meanwhile, Mountain View County remains in discussions with Alberta Environment about riverbank erosion concerns upstream from Sundre.
“The problem now is from the airport and Coyote Creek golf course, it is a mile and a half west is the first breach point,” said Reeve Paddy Munro. “We need to figure out how to move forward and we are trying to figure out what to do. The most important thing that has happened is we have agreed to cooperate.”
Mountain View County has engaged an engineering company that specializes in rivers and river erosion to help identify possible solutions to the flooding dangers upstream from Sundre, he said.
Counncil accepts roadwork tenders
In other town news, town councillors have passed a motion approving a tender for number of roadwork projects in town.
The motion reads: “That council accept the tender from Rubydale Asphalt Works for miscellaneous road work, water meter vault installation and development of the museum area up to the amounts specified in the 2011 operating and capital budgets.”
The projects include installation of catch basins at 4th Avenue. N.W., installation of five wheelchair ramps at various locations, water meter vault installations and various work outside the museum.
“There is adequate budget to proceed with the projects as planned except for museum development,” CAO Leuzinger said in a note to council. “The private land portion of this project was to develop a parking lot owned by the museum should the tender prices support the project.
“As may be seen the town-owned land alone is above the budget amount so the private land portion of the project will not proceed. The town-owned portion is $86,148 above the budget so the project will need to be scaled back.
“In this project it was proposed to install two decorative lights in the area of the old thrift shop which could be eliminated, which would reduce costs by approximately $50,000. The town will need to work with the engineer and contractor to reduce the costs to the budget amount.”
