Politics driving flood control? So what?
In all of southern Alberta’s long struggle with its unruly rivers, Thursday may someday be seen as the most important moment since Calgary decided to build the Glenmore Dam.
The dam was finished in 1932, after construction that cost the outrageous sum of $3.8 million, at the dawn of the great American dam-building era inspired by thenU.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Ever since, the Glenmore Dam has made most of the Elbow River banks habitable, providing steady protection and a measure of security.
Until June 20, when the rules changed forever.
Until the moment when the term “hundred-year-flood” no longer meant a hundred years away. Suddenly, it meant right now.
On Thursday, five months and one day later, the province announced the first of a series of great engineering works to control the rivers.
Much has already been done, of course; the grinding cleanup, the phoenix-like rise of the Stampede from the mud, the finest demonstration of self-help and mutualhelp Alberta has ever seen.
There’s also been mitigation work on erosion control and berm construction, as well as a host of policies, some designed to clear houses off floodways.
All this has been remarkable. But from the moment the extent of the disaster became clear, we’ve been waiting for the big ones — the classic mega-projects that must finally be built to control the rivers.
Thursday, Premier Alison Redford announced three. All have been discussed before, but this is the first time the province has made them official, putting the full weight of policy and funding behind them.
Yes, Redford did it on the very eve of her party convention, where her leadership will be reviewed.
But, frankly, my dears, we don’t give a dam. If it takes politics to move this along, well, that’s what politics are supposed to be for; to get things done.
A huge diversion ditch will be built to the south of High River, taking flood water on a shortcut past the town. Much engineering work has to be completed, but the biggest challenge is land acquisition.
The project will cost hundreds of millions (because of tendering, the province won’t give firm estimates). Work could start early next year, although it can’t be finished before the flood season in May and June. In 2014, we cross our fingers. Next comes a dry dam for the headwaters of the Elbow up beyond Bragg Creek. The location isn’t quite clear yet, but the structure will be designed to sharply slow the downriver rush of any sudden flooding.
There will be several more such dams in the mountain headwaters of both rivers, and also in the foothills, because some floods are caused by rainstorms east of the mountains.
Finally, the province gave the city of Calgary $250,000 to assess the most fascinating project of all, a massive underground drain, drilled through bedrock, to take flood water all the way from the base of the Glenmore Dam to the Bow River, along the general alignment of 58th Avenue.
“It sounds like a crazy idea, but sometimes crazy ideas work out,” says a senior city official. “For one thing, if we bought a tunnel-boring machine to do this, we could use it for new LRT lines later.”
Redford has intentionally driven this work quickly, in order to get started before memories begin to fade and the political will slips away.
There will be many more projects for both the Bow and the Elbow. This time, the government must not flag, or forget, or lose interest.
Happily, there’s no sign of that so far.