While the Town of Canmore is keen to better understand the hazard and risk potential of the Bow River after experiencing significantly high flows in June 2013 – including a major release from Minnewanka – it will have to wait for the province to do a larger analysis of the river basin.
General manager of engineering Andy Esarte told council earlier this month when a project to do a joint hazard and risk assessment with the province was approved by council last year the indication was the government, which is responsible for rivers, was supportive of the project.
“The intent of the project was that it was to be completed in collaboration with the province,” he said. “What this study would have done is aim to take a look past the one-in-100 mapping that is standard in the province.
“We know from 2013 the one-in-100 event fits within the dike system, but what happens beyond that in terms of the impact on the community during an event and afterwards?”
Now, Esarte said, the province is going in a different direction and looking at the entire Bow River basin and its catchments.
“In light of that, we feel it is an opportunity for the work to be done by them for a large number of communities in a consistent way,” he said, adding due to the election there is no official project underway as of yet.
“We probably won’t see a commitment on their part for a while and we also anticipate the study would take a significant amount of time to undertake.
“In the meantime, the town has a need and desire to focus on what the impacts of the Bow River could be on the community.”
Esarte said he would return to council later this month with the project so council can change the scope to look only at emergency response preparation for the municipality.
That analysis would include what parts of the river berm are vulnerable first to being exceeded by high water flows; where emergency operations would be based; at what point does the town begin evacuating residents and where they would go, among other questions.
“There are a number of specific questions I don’t feel we have any better information about than we had since the flood of 2013,” Esarte said. “What we care about is when someone projects 100 cubic metres of flow, regardless of the return period, for Canmore what does that mean in terms of what happens on the ground and how we respond?”
The original scope had a budget of $250,000, but Esarte said the new one would not exceed $125,000.
He also detailed various smaller projects in 2014 that cost $150,000 to improve parts of the trail system along the river that were affected the year before.
Chief administrative officer Lisa de Soto added since the 2013 flood experience, administration has also been working on evacuation processes in different locations.
“From an evacuation perspective, we have a better sense of the systems and processes in place when you are evacuating an area,” she said.
