The Province will invest $10 million toward the repair of flood damaged trails over the next three years, Minister of Environment Robin Campbell announced at Kananaskis’ Jumpingpound Bridge, June 5.
“During the flood of 2013 the bridge here at Moose Creek was severely damaged by a log jam as the river was flowing at its highest rate ... and because of that we’re introducing the backcountry trail flood and rehabilitation program,” Campbell said.
“This is a new $10 million program and it will kickstart restoration of the backcountry trail systems of public lands that were impacted by the flooding. ESRD will work with stakeholder groups in the planning, prioritization and rehabilitation process of the public trails.”
Trails being prioritized include Castle, Cataract Creek, Ghost, Kananaskis, McLean and Upper Clearwater. The province is planning to have the project accomplished by the end of March, 2017.
“In this location we have Jumpingpound Bridge, where a bridge was washed out,” ESRD resource manger Rob Simieritsch said. “It was jammed up with debris and was just no longer functional, all related to last year’s flooding.
“What we’ve done is set up a program to deal with all the backcountry damage; everywhere from the Castle all the way up to Nordic (Centre). We’ve set up a program to deal with that.”
Presently, the province has identified over 160 kilometres of trails in Kananaskis in need of restoration. “A large portion of the first stage of the project was spent recognizing sites,” Simieritsch said. “Then we’re going to prioritize over the next two years and go really hard with the projects highest on the list.
“Luckily, the damage at Jumpingpound Bridge will cleared and repaired in a few days. With this particular site they just have to clean up the wood debris around here. The bridge we have to actually haul out to make sure it’s stable and sustainable and once we haul it out, we’ll make a decision because the bridge is actually too small for this crossing.
“We have to make the decision whether we’re putting the bridge back or not along here or do we just close this section of trail and put the bridge at a different location? We need to pull it out to do an assessment as what we’ll do with this specific site later in the summer.”
Simieritsch says presently much of the focus and gauging is towards the Ghost area. “That’s one of the key areas and we’re also looking at Kananaskis right now. We actually started of the Diamond T Loop on Station Flats along Highway 68. We have our inventory crews out right now, so another area we’re looking at right now is Prairie Creek – areas along the front ranges there.”
The funds designated for the program are strictly for public land use from Castle to Bighorn Lake.
