SR1 project anticipated to take off next spring following NRCB approval
The Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir Project (SR1) was officially approved by the Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB) on June 22.
The independent, quasi-judicial board of the Government of Alberta concluded that the Project is in the public interest and will provide much-needed flood protection to the City of Calgary.
Despite many arguments against the project from groups upstream of the project, the NRCB found that its positive social and economic effects outweigh the negative.
Construction of the dam and reservoir should take three years to complete, the province said, and is anticipated to begin next spring.
Property owners of the land needed for the project have until the end of July to reach an agreement with the province. Alberta Transportation Minister Rajan Sawhney said the province could begin expropriating the land if agreements are not reached.
This is not ideal for landowner rights, commented Karin Hunter of the SR1 Concerned Landowners Group (SCLG) who opposed the project.
“Even though the alternative at McLean Creek would have been a far more effective flood mitigation tool, unfortunately that information wasn’t really made public until this year. It’s just such a lost opportunity to get something that could have been better at flood mitigation for all communities along the Elbow River, but also provided a reservoir for fire suppression, drought mitigation, for recreation. SR1 does none of those things,” Hunter said.
She added that the McLean Creek project could have provided a legacy asset for the future.
During the 11-day virtual hearing in March and April, SCLG stated they felt Alberta Transportation muted opposition to the SR1, that project selection was inadequate, and that SR1 was not the best project to offer flood mitigation to the area.
SCLG felt Rocky View County and Tsuut’ina First Nation would have continued to oppose SR1 if not for Alberta Transportation’s financial deals with those parties.
They also had concerns about the lack of consultation with those affected during the project selection process and that the decision was already made prior to a report comparing alternative projects.
Hunter explained that the SR1 project was announced a year after the flood in 2013, and that the same consideration was not given to the McLean Creek project.
“All we ever asked was just to stop for a moment, take another look with what you know now and confirm that this is still the best one or if McLean Creek would have been better,” she said.
In response to concerns that SR1 does not provide flood protection to Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows, Alberta Transportation said both communities are undergoing flood mitigation projects, with the installation of berms. These berms are separate from SR1.
“We have higher berms, a couple metres higher, however those couple metres are all made of dirt and we know what happened to the dirt berms last time in 2013. The river wins,” said Dr. Karen Massey, from the SCLG.
Besides flood mitigation, Massey brought up the inevitable drought mitigation and the fact that SR1 doesn’t store any water. Hunter noted that the SR1 is a billion dollar investment in water infrastructure that doesn’t store any.
“Calgary won’t have enough water by 2036, we need a dam upstream to provide a holding capacity for water for the times the rivers are running low,” Massey said.
With approval from both the NRCB and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the next steps for the project are to gain approval under the Alberta Dam Safety and from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Hunter noted that the project also still requires water act approval from Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP).
Some of the conditions under the NRCB approval include establishing a Joint Land
Use Advisory Committee consisting Indigenous members and the local community and providing Indigenous groups access to the project development area prior to construction to harvest traditional use plants and conduct ceremonies.
The operator must also monitor water levels in domestic water wells near the diversion channel, monitor air quality, and provide Project monitoring results related to aquatic ecology, hydrology and sediment transport, surface water quality, groundwater quality and quantity, vegetation, terrain and soils, wildlife and biodiversity, and air quality publicly accessible.
The Project is intended to work in tandem with the Glenmore Reservoir in Calgary.
With a capacity to divert up to 600 cubic metres per second from the Elbow River to the off-stream reservoir during flood events, half the flow could go into the springbank reservoir while the other half is diverted into the Glenmore Reservoir.
Together, the two reservoirs will have a total combined storage capacity of 87,771,000 m3, exceeding the amount of water that overtopped the Glenmore Dam during the 2013 flood.
The springbank off-stream reservoir is located near Springbank Road and Highway 22, approximately 15 km west of Calgary, and will flood an area of approximately 800 hectares.
Once the risk of floods subside, the reservoir water returns to the Elbow River.
The diversion structure is a 4.7 kilometre long diversion channel and the dam stretches 3.3 km in length.
Construction costs have been estimated at approximately $340 million and land acquisition costs are expected to be about $140 million.
The 2013 southern Alberta flood resulted in five deaths and approximately $5B in financial losses and damage to public and private property.
Masha Scheele, HCN Staff
media@highcountrynews.ca
