The Town of Canmore has every intention of pursuing work to see an early warning system developed for Cougar Creek, but the project won’t be ready in time for this year’s high water season.
But, while Canmore intends to pursue the project to develop an algorithm to provide a heads up to the risk of normally dry mountain creeks turning into raging rhythms, it doesn’t intend to be responsible for the model in the long term.
Manager of engineering Andy Esarte told council Tuesday (March 11), the goal is to see higher levels of government be responsible for any official torrent warning system.
“It rightfully belongs in government hands and in the long term,” Esarte said. “I would like to see that with the province with a wider warning system or maybe with a multi-governmental collaboration.
“This isn’t something the municipality should be in the business of in the long term, but in the short term, three-to-five years as a trial in order to transition into a more senior level of government, I think it is appropriate in this case.”
With a $600,000 study of what happened on Cougar Creek, experts in the field of hydrology in mountain creeks engaged, and short-term mitigations totaling $14 million so far, Esarte said it makes sense for Canmore to do the work now.
There was support from council, with Councillor Sean Krausert pointing out Canmore is taking the lead and getting things done.
“I appreciate the efforts you are doing in this regard because I think having one more tool in the toolkit is always a good thing and I am really pleased that because of this you are having discussions with Environment Canada and the province and those discussions are encouraging people to look at this,” Krausert said.
Since council approved developing a torrent warning system at the beginning of February, administration has also met with scientists and the province.
As the system would form part of the overall project for Cougar Creek, it requires provincial approval to move forward as part of that project. With that still to occur, Esarte told council he does not expect the system to be ready this year. He added, in discussions with Alberta Environment on funding and development a system, they are keen to work with the municipality.
“I just don’t think they have had an opportunity to sit down and digest it and what that funding commitment means in terms of the general commitment,” Esarte said. “That will take time and that is part of the challenge.”
The warning system, when developed, is not expected to be provided as public information, but provide administration with the ability to use data to predict whether the risk of a debris flood within a certain time frame is low, medium or high.
