Kevin Hanson – Division 1
Quick Bits
The roadwork on the Highway 8 bridge over the Elbow River continues. The large stockpile of material piled on the north side the highway is slowly disappearing as it is being used to fill the large temporary storm pond between the old roadbed and the new west-bound bridge and highway lanes. It has been interesting to watch them sorting through the material, removing large boulders with screen buckets on the excavator shovels, hauling, then layering in and compacting the clay material on the south side of the road. Work continues in the river bed with mobile cranes replacing the excavators that started the work. Soon we should see the abutments leading up to the new bridge span forming which will give us an idea of the location of the new span, and the alignment of the new eastbound highway lanes.
Emergency Special Council Meeting
A special council meeting was called on August 12th with a single agenda item: Flooding Impacts on County Infrastructure. Just prior I had heard on the news that Okotoks had the most rain of any Canadian city in July. They also reported the Springbank Airport was the second rainiest spot in Canada in the month of July.
The day before the meeting I stopped into the Elbow Valley Resident’s club to talk with the community managers about the performance of the overland storm water system, and if there were any problems. They indicated that everything was performing well, other than the amount of bio material being flushed into the lakes – putting water quality off-side of provincial standards and requiring the posting signs that the beach is closed for swimming. This is a normal occurrence about twice a year – the Lott Creek snow melt run-off from Tsuu T’ina; and fall migratory goose poop. They mentioned a number of residents were reporting sump pumps running, but nothing that was causing issues. Good news.
I had also been the Bragg Creek community a number of times observing the impact of the high water-table on a significant number of resident’s in the hamlet. For example, some houses on Burntall Drive had up to 4 large sump pump lines running across their property and discharging into the ditch.
Related to the high water-table, abnormal amounts of water were entering the sanitary sewer line and overwhelming our treatment plant. This is a forced-main type of system, so water ingress into the piping is not possible downstream of the grinder pumps. Rocky View staff were onsite the hamlet, inspecting and going door-to-door educating folks on the limitations of the sewer system, and to not be directing storm water into the sanitary upstream of the grinder pumps. Safe and Sound messages also went out informing folks of the same. The situation was that for every 10 units of potable water going out we were getting over 30 units of sanitary sewer back.
At the special council meeting we heard from Administration that the June and July total rainfall was more than triple the average, and a number of areas in the County were being impacted. Most of these areas were on the east side of Rocky View, but the report also highlighted the situation in Bragg Creek, especially the overwhelmed sanitary waste water treatment plant issues.
Admin outlined some short-term initiatives including emergency drainage activities of which about half were for vacuum truck haulage related to the Bragg Creek waste water situation. We were also informed that we would eventually be submitting a claim to the Provincial disaster recovery funding streams to seek assistance for additional costs – once all the bill’s are in.
They also informed us about locking at longer-term projects to improve the county’s storm water infrastructure from a new lens of climate resiliency. We know the investments pay off – Bearspaw had no issues this year – usually a chronic problem area. I am sure this summer’s experience will impact this fall’s capital budgeting discussions.
Council unanimously approved a budget adjustment of up to $1.5 million from the Tax Stabilization Reserve “to fund contracted services and conveyance of flood waters to support Rocky View County’s flood mitigation efforts. By adopting both the immediate and the sustained measures, the County aims to reduce flood risk by strengthening infrastructure, accelerating emergency preparedness, and fostering broad based collaboration”.
Contact: KRHanson@RockyView.ca or call 403.463.1166.
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