EDMONTON – In the aftermath of the worst flooding the province has ever seen, Alberta Premier Alison Redford says a harder line must be drawn when it comes to building in flood-prone areas.
“This disaster changed the lives of so many of our friends and neighbours,” said Redford on Thursday.
“It doesn’t matter where you live in this province, we cannot continue – as a provincial government – to say to people, ‘it’s OK to build in a floodway.’ It’s not the right decision.”
Redford was speaking in High River, one of the hardest hit towns when massive flooding swept through Southern Alberta June 20. Some areas of High River are still under water.
“As government, we are contemplating policy on that right now, and it’s very important that we get that information out to people in short order. And I expect that they’ll have information on that in the next couple of days.”
She said if people have the information, they will make constructive choices, taking responsibility for their life and move ahead.
However, she admitted the change will be complicated because it’s going to impact people’s lives.
Cheryl Fortin agrees with that assessment. Fortin lives in one of Edmonton’s flood-prone River Valley communities.
“There are probably other ways around it than just restricting all development in the River Valley system,” she says.
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Fortin says she and her family understood the risk of living in the area prior to buying property there, and still decided to take on the risk.
“The river was really close and we had to do a lot of extra things to build our house in order to make sure it applied with all the flood guidelines.”
“There is still the chance of flooding, and we took on that risk,” she adds.
In recent weeks, as the water levels of the North Saskatchewan rose and the City of Edmonton was put on a Flood Watch, Fortin saw the water creep up to reach park benches on the river bank in her neighbourhood.
“It has been worse in previous years,” she admits, “but this year it was not too bad in this neighbourhood. But, every year is different.”
Fortin says residents weigh the risks of living in areas close to waterways and is calling for a balance approach.
“We have a water treatment plant, we have the old power plant, so there’s a lot of other infrastructure in the river valleys and in the flood plains – all the houses in here, in Riverdale, Cloverdale, Rossdale…”
“I don’t know what the plan would be to stop the developments from continuing, but it would still take another hundred years for these houses to not be livable anymore,” she says.
Friday, Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths gave a little more insight into what the changes might entail.
“We’re all working very diligently to finalize this policy on where people can build and what they can do and what they policy’s going to be going forward, and it will apply to everybody in the province.”
“But, if a house is in a flood plain they’re not going to have to pack up and desert their house,” he explained. “Every community is going to have different options available to them, whether its mitigation, whether it’s moving electricity and everything upstairs, whether it’s building berms or dikes, whether it’s moving your house, it’s going to depend on each community individually.”
Fortin could see how some less drastic changes could help protect Edmonton’s River Valley residents.
“There might be better things to do up the river for damming and things like that that will prevent the cities’ flooding into these neighbourhoods.”
A report submitted to the government in 2006 recommended the province restrict development in flood-prone areas. No action was taken at that time. (Read the full report below)
Now, Redford says this issue is top of mind and decisions will be made public very shortly.
“There’s a whole suite of recommendations that we will put in place,” she said. “Some of them are from experiences in Alberta, some are from experiences in other jurisdictions, and that will all be sorted out in the next couple of days.”
“Typically, I know it would take months or years to do,” said Griffiths. “I anticipate we’ve got a few more days of work. We have to do it, I know, because we’ve got people who want to renovate their home, or get in the basement and start rebuilding, or rebuild their house. They need to know what they’re going to be allowed to do or not to do.”
With files from the Canadian Press, and Vinesh Pratap
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