Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows residents with concerns about flood mitigation in their areas are encouraged to attend a second community meeting at Redwood House Sept. 13.
Running from 6:30-9 p.m., the ‘Elbow River Corridor Project’ is an “initiative that focuses on community engagement and education on riverfront flood protection, restoration, improvements and amenities in the Elbow River corridor area of Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows”.
According to facilitator Carole Stark, this is not a Rocky View County-driven initiative and is more of an opportunity for residents to put their concerns on the table and to begin talking about possible flood mitigation solutions for the corridor.
Environmental studies and analysis on the potential impacts of the controversial Springbank Dry Dam and Offsite Reservoir won’t begin to wrap up until summer 2017.
This downstream project is part of the bigger picture with respect to flood mitigation but is likely years away from construction; in the meantime, the flooding devastation for Elbow River corridor residents remains a not-so-distant memory.
Earlier this year, the county voted in favour of accepting $32.8 million in funding from the province to complete flood defences for those county residents living in Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows.
“The entire hamlet population was deeply affected by the 2013 flood and will not make it through another episode,” said County Div. 1 Coun. Liz Breakey, who is excited to be one step closer to flood protection for area residents.
“Because we’re not doing upstream protection there was a need to protect Bragg Creek (and Redwood Meadows),” she said, stressing the importance of this opportunity for residents.
Breakey said the $32.8 million will go toward mitigation projects such as berm building, drainage solutions, work on the Balsam Street Bridge and some land buyouts.
The contract was awarded to AMEC Foster Wheeler and SunAgro Land Services, who will begin work this season to complete detailed engineering designs and work collaboratively with the Tsuut’ina Nation and community of Redwood Meadows.
Following the community meeting, the contractor will begin flood defence design work with impacted landowners later this fall; the next open house would be early (January) 2017; with construction going to tender May 2017 (subject to environmental approvals and completion of First Nations consultation and government approvals) and an anticipated construction timeline of six months.
