Work has continued over the spring and summer months throughout the Drumheller Valley to build berms in strategic locations to protect properties in the floodways along the Red Deer River, and in September 2024 the Drumheller Resiliency and Flood Mitigation department provided an update on the work completed this year.
Construction has been focused on berm projects in the North Drumheller and East Coulee areas, while areas in the former community of Lehigh are being returned to a natural state so these lands can be transformed into Environmental Reserves in the future.
The berm in East Coulee is nearly wrapped up, though it is anticipated some additional work to finalize landscaping and seeding of the berm, including adding top soil and completing in-stream work and installation of culvert head wells, will need to be completed.
Once completed, the berm will stretch more than 1.5 kilometres in length and will protect a total of 121 properties within the community from future flood events.
Work has also been completed on various projects in North Drumheller, including the Michichi Creek West and East berms, and the Hospital Extension berm. This has included placement of clay and riprap along the berms and removal of a concrete weir in Michichi Creek, as well as installation of a sanitary sewer pipe in this area and realignment of the Michichi Creek channel.
Additional work, including landscaping and testing of the sanitary sewer line, is also expected to be carried out.
Along with development of the berms and associated infrastructure, the Flood Mitigation team has also been working on returning the lands in the former community of Lehigh back to their natural state.
This will allow the Town of Drumheller to re-designate land in these areas to Environmental Reserve, which will prevent future construction of infrastructure or other buildings. This will ensure that these lands cannot be reverted back to any other designation by future councils.
It is anticipated remediation of the lands in Lehigh will continue throughout 2025, with any additional work and maintenance on the flood berms in North Drumheller and East Coulee to be completed within the first and second quarter of 2025.
