Ten years after the Bow and Elbow rivers spilled their banks, causing devastating impacts to Calgary, the city is halfway to being fully protected against a flood of similar scale.
However, questions remain over protections on the Bow River.
Calgary city officials said the city is 55-per cent more resilient to floods than it was in 2013, and that number will jump to 70 per cent when the Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir on the Elbow River, and the Sunnyside flood barrier on the Bow River, are completed in 2025.
On Tuesday, city representatives along with the Calgary Emergency Management Agency held a press conference to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the 2013 floods, and highlight the flood mitigation work that was completed since.
“We were not defined by what happened to us, rather we have been defined by our collaborative response and immediate actions towards mitigation,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said.
$1 billion has been spent between all three levels of government on flood mitigation in the city.
Part of that work includes upgrades to the gates on the Glenmore Dam to increase the capacity of the reservoir; combined with the Springbank reservoir it’s expected to largely quell concerns of a large-scale flood on the Elbow River in the future.
It’s a relief for advocates like Brenda Leeds Binder, co-president of the Calgary River Communities Action Group, who noted there is more work to be done.
“It’s amazing it’s taken this long; the Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir won’t be fully operational for two more years,” Leeds Binder told Global News. “But there’s also the Bow River to consider.”
The lack of flood mitigation on the Bow River could be seen last year, when the city was forced to built an 88-metre berm across Memorial Drive, due to concerns of heavy rainfall in the forecast.
Luckily, the rain turned to snow in the mountains and the river didn’t rise above its banks.
The city has completed several smaller-scale projects along the Bow River like drainage improvements, gravel bars, bank stability work and flood barriers.
After several years of planning, the Sunnyside Flood Barrier between 14 Street NW and Centre Street is set to begin construction later this year, and it couldn’t come soon enough, according to residents in Sunnyside.
“What we want as a community is a good flood barrier, and what we need to avoid is the temptation… Good heavens, you could spend five years working towards perfection,” said Charlie Lund, flood committee chair with the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association.
“We don’t feel that there is that luxury of time at this point 10 years in.”
However, it’s been determined that building another dam upstream on the Bow River is the best way to get the rest of the way on flood resilience in Calgary.
The province is undertaking a feasibility study exploring options to build another reservoir upstream on the Bow River, narrowing the scope to three possible options.
The first option is a new reservoir between Seebe and Morley on Stoney Nakoda Nation lands, the second is an expansion to the Ghost Reservoir and Dam, and the third is a new reservoir between Cochrane and the Bearspaw Dam.
“This 30 per cent remaining of flood damage exposure is directly tied to mitigation along the Bow River,” Gondek said.
“That’s why we continue to advocate for the funding to move the provincial Bow River Reservoir Option Study to phase three, which would proceed with the detailed design and regulatory approvals for the preferred reservoir option.”
The study is expected to be complete later this year, and advocates hope work can progress quickly given the timelines for a complex project.
“What I would like to see is a decision to be made and for there to be some urgency around accelerating execution on the project,” Leeds Binder said. “Ideally sooner than 2034, which is very far out.”
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