The Town of Drumheller has received news that will forward the Flood Mitigation Project significantly and very soon.
On June 23, the Minister of Environment and Parks, Jason Nixon, gave the town the green light to build berms at the recommended elevations.
“The debate was whether they were going to allow us to build to the regulated or the unregulated flows,” explains Drumhheller CAO Darryl Drohomerski. “So the announcement of them telling us they are considering regulated flows to be the level of protection of the Drumheller Valley.”
“This means the plans we have been working on can be completed because now there is a lot more certainty.”
This means the berms can be built to the 1,850 cubic Metres per second level, plus freeboard. The unregulated flow would be 2,260 cubic Metres per second
“If they told us it was going to be unregulated, then we would have to go back and raise all the berms and revisit alignments, because if you have to go up, you have to go out. It might have meant more property acquisition,” he said.
He explains had they been required to build to the unregulated flow the berms could have been up to 2.7 meters higher than the current diking system in areas.
This has been a sticking point for the program for some time. This allows the berm designs process to resume. He explains the existing flood mitigation in the town will still need to be built up higher. The amount will vary based on location.
“Now we can start finalizing berm designs and be able to go out more readily to those property owners that might be impacted as well as to the general public with those proposed berm designs,” said Drohomerski.
This has been a lobbying point for the Flood Mitigation program for some time.
“This whole deal with the province was kind of an 11th-hour thing, where they were debating whether they would include unregulated and that would have really changed our focus… Some areas would have been incalculable with respect to the amount of change that would have been required,” he said.
Last week the town also announced the geotechnical work on Dike D (Aquaplex to Schumacher’s Corner) planned for July 6 was cancelled. It will be completed in conjunction with the Historical Resources Assessment Field program, during the week of July 12. It will take about two days, and a backhoe will be digging test pits for deep investigation for the presence of historical or archaeological resources.
“We couldn’t do this until we actually cleared the trees, and it should be fairly straightforward… but you never know what we are going to find,” said Drohomerski.
