On July 15, current members of the CRCAG Board, and a few past, were invited to tour the Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir (SR1) along with several Alberta Government officials, employees and contractors who had a hand in its creation.
We can tell you with absolute assurance: SR1 is truly IMPRESSIVE.
- For our May announcement to the Members of the completion of this historic project with associated links, see: SR1 is officially in operation — Government of Alberta press release today
- Video (news story): Springbank off stream reservoir
- Video: Government’s animation of SR1’s operation
- For current information from the Alberta Government, visit: https://www.alberta.ca/springbank-off-stream-reservoir
We first visited the very unique gate mechanism embedded alongside the Elbow River, that will be lowered in the next flood event if it’s anticipated that the banks of the Elbow River will be breached. Excess waters will be diverted down the long channel to the reservoir storage area, to be held until the flood risk passes. In the computer modelling done for SR1, it was estimated that this infrastructure would have been used eight times already if it had been in place 100 years ago. We next visited the east flank of the berm built to hold these waters in the storage area and you could see how vast the whole area is. What is really surprising is how innocuous this structure is from the nearby Highways 8 and 22. Someone not looking for its bits could conceivably miss them. And this land will be set aside forever from development of any kind, adding significant green space in perpetuity just west of the City.
Below are some of the pictures we took during our visit. We hope this helps in understanding the scope of what’s been accomplished to assist in keeping Calgary dry in the future.
Members, thank you! Your unflagging support of and participation in CRCAG’s work over the long years helped make this happen.
Your CRCAG Board
