While municipalites aren’t in the business of throwing money around as their provincial and federal political counterparts are willing to do, Canmore’s council made the right call in spending $1.3 million from reserves on a short-term Cougar Creek mitigation plan.
In the end, what else could council do? With the Province putting up $12.7 million and the Town expected to contribute, in failing to do so, particularly should another flood occur without steps being taken, how could members of council look citizens in the face?
And, when statements like future floods being a “statistical certainty” are tossed about, along with past dates of similar events that show the 2013 flood wasn’t that unusual, it’s pretty clear something needs to be done.
Actually, it’s pretty clear something should have been done quite a while ago, when developments bordering Cougar Creek were given the go-ahead.
The thing about the Cougar Creek flood of this summer is that, most of the time, the creek looks more like a dried up desert water course than an actual waterbody.
Clearly, though, looks can be deceiving.
Passers by would be hard pressed to imagine the creek in full flood, blasting along, scouring out banks, carrying many thousands of tons of debris with it, destroying everything in its path.
The same scenario, of course, played out in other mountain creeks in the area, including the MD of Bighorn, which is also looking at massive bills to alleviate the effects of Exshaw and Jura Creeks turning into destructive beasts. Bighorn is currently staring a $10 million recovery price tag in the face.
What people must realize is that the $14 million price tag attached to the current mitigation plan is only a short-term gain. At some point, more money, possibly a lot more money, is going to be poured into long-term mitigation plans and valley residents will have to be prepared for those dollars coming out of municipal coffers.
Without long-term plans, there is little point in rebuilding. With the likelihood of more flood events now seen as a certainty, rather than the misleading terminology of a 1-in-a-100-year event, as Mayor John Borrowman said, it’s work that needs to be done.
Similar scenarios, budgets and mitigation efforts will be required downstream of the Bow Valley as well, as Calgary, High River and other communities are now also looking more suspiciously at the bodies of water that flow by or through their communities.
On the buses
Good on Parks Canada for seeing the light and incorporating shuttle buses into its promotions for viewing larch trees in full fall colour in the Lake Louise area.
After last year’s fiasco where viewing fall larch was promoted as a major tourism event, only to have roads blocked, closed by police, vehicles turned around and concerns that emergency vehicle access was lost, offering an alternative to driving to viewing locations was necessary.
We just hope that, like shuttles to the former dragon boat races at Minnewanka kept traffic congestion down in the popular spot, larch shuttles will have the same effect. Now all that’s needed is to get people pried out of their vehicles and onto said buses.
Successful larch busing could foreshadow similar situations within the parks that could reduce congestion and pollution and make for a more enjoyable visitor experience than traffic jams, irate drivers and road rage.
