Moving Forward

Mountain View County and the Red Deer River

Mountain View County position on Red Deer River flooding and erosion

Mountain View County acknowledges that erosion issues along the Red Deer River -specifically adjacent to the Coal Camp Road southwest of Sundre- pose an immediate threat to County infrastructure.

Recognizing the Coal Camp Road as a vital transportation artery, Mountain View County is taking immediate action to protect this County infrastructure from erosion. Mountain View County is currently installing an out-of-channel revetment between the Coal Camp Road and the Red Deer River, at a total cost just under $680,000, in order to mitigate erosion issues at this location. On May 6, Council also approved an Erosion and Mitigation Study, which will study a previously identified potential breakout location along the Red Deer River, close to the Sundre Airport; and will create a typical engineering design that the County would incorporate along the Red Deer River for other sites, as conditions and funding dictate.

Council has also pledged to assist residents and businesses to obtain grants from provincial and federal levels of government, enabling potentially affected individuals to take measures to protect their properties from possible flood and river breakout events.

We recognize that the responsibility for flooding and erosion mitigation along the Red Deer River is multi-jurisdictional. As a result, Mountain View County is actively pursuing partnerships with industry and local, provincial and federal governments, in order to attain long term solutions to flooding and erosion issues; and to obtain the necessary funding to implement these solutions.

Mountain View County supports the Town of Sundre's prerogative to determine the seriousness and severity of emergent flood and erosion issues along the Red Deer River, particularly those which may potentially impact the Town of Sundre. We support the Town of Sundre as the jurisdiction responsible for declaring a Municipal State of Emergency should circumstances warrant; acknowledging that currently, such a situation does not exist.Mountain View County also supports the Town of Sundre's and it's own prerogative to pursue flood mitigation initiatives that are legally within the capacity of each municipality to undertake; and believes that any issues undertaken to mitigate flood and erosion issues along the Reed Deer River must follow the appropriate processes set forth by the Federal and Provincial governments, who have jurisdiction over any work which takes place in, or along, any waterway within the province of Alberta.

Mountain View County supports only those actions to mitigate flooding and erosion that have no expected adverse effects on residents, industry or private property downstream of the location where any permitted mitigation activities are undertaken.

In the long term, Mountain View County supports the creation of stakeholder groups involving local, regional, provincial and federal partners to determine long-term flood and erosion protection solutions along the Red Deer River.

Resources:

• May 19,2009 Supplement- Moving forwatd on the Red Deer River- Mountain View Gazette (PDF 5.2 MB)
• May 7, 2009 Press release- Mountain View County position on Red Deer River flooding and | erosion (PDF 51KB)