Home Care In Glenbow, AB

There’s increased worry about the proposed site for a flood mitigation project along the Bow River, west of Calgary.

A meeting was held Wednesday night in Bearspaw, with many attendees concerned one option could spell the end of a popular trail network.

It was the sixth such meeting the foundation has hosted to discuss the potential impact the Bow River Flood Mitigation Project could have on Glenbow Ranch, as well as Bearspaw and Haskayne Legacy Parks.

Group CEO Jeromy Farkas says one issue with a reservoir at Glenbow East would send water away from Calgary, and back into the town of Cochrane, something he calls a non-starter.

“The biggest issue that comes up was the need to keep the promise that was made to the Harvie and Haskayne families,” he said. “These parks only came to be because there was a promise those lands would be protected forever — they’re supposed to be protected forever for all of us to be able to enjoy.”

No decision has been made, but Farkas says if Glenbow East goes ahead, it would discourage others like the Harvie and Haskayne families from making similar donations

Farkas claims the Glenbow East’s bathtub would be too wide and shallow, not ideal in solving drought.

“This means the water would be a lot warmer with a lot of surface area,” Farkas said. “Long story short, it would be more prone to evaporation which this Glenbow Dam and Reservoir just not very effective.”

He adds the $992 million Glenbow East Project would also mean railway lines would need to be relocated, impacting wildlife and jeopardizing more park land.

“And in the event of the brand new Haskayne Legacy Park, that pavilion hasn’t been open even eight months and now the government is destroying it for a completely different project,” Farkas added. “It makes no sense.”

Farkas and the foundation are pushing the province to replace and modernize the Ghost Reservoir west of Cochrane, which would cost $917 million.

“It also has the benefit of being a lot deeper and narrower, which means the water would remain cooler and there would be far less surface area,” he explained.

He says Ghost is far superior when it comes to solving both flooding and drought.

Farks also explains the natural terrain features at Glenbow Ranch and Haskayne Legacy Parks are a net contributor to watershed health.

“Essentially the grass serves as a sponge would, it absorbs water in the event of flooding, it helps slow it down and spread it out and during drought, it helps release some of that from the vegetation back into the river,” he said.

A decision from the Alberta government is expected sometime next year.

Farkas says the foundation will continue its work to spread the word and support the province to make the right decision.

Opponents of a provincial government proposal to build a dam on the Bow River just east of Cochrane are having trouble understanding why the project has even remained a possibility this long.

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Opponents of a provincial government proposal to build a dam on the Bow River just east of Cochrane are having trouble understanding why the project has even remained a possibility this long and they want the public’s support in telling the government to listen to them and kill the idea.

The public engagement process surrounding the proposed project to mitigate future flooding and drought issues began in 2021 to help identify and assess the potential socio-economic, environmental, and other impacts of each option.

There is no shortage of irony here – a project designed to mitigate flood damage would likely cause considerable flood damage.

Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation’s new CEO Jeromy Farkas is leading the charge against the East Glenbow option.

He said the public engagement process was and is flawed.

The public meetings and an online survey on the latest developments was posted on April 15 and closes May 13.

He said the reason the issue is not getting as much attention as he’d like is perhaps because the public is tired of hearing about the possibility of a dam on the Bow. It has been floated as a trial balloon for many years.

“The idea of flooding a park like Glenbow Ranch, it’s so obviously and transparently wrong and awful, so the thought that this could actually happen is deemed unlikely,” he said.

“People don’t realize this is under review. And they also don’t realize it would flood parts of Cochrane and wouldn’t protect Cochrane one tiny bit.”

He said the Glenbow Ranch Park has always had good relations with the provincial government but they couldn’t sit idly by and not speak up about this potentially destructive project.

And the public engagement process was sadly lacking, in their view.

“So we’re going to step up and fill that gap,” Farkas said.

There will be two more public meetings in other locations after the one in Cochrane.

Farkas is urging interested parties to log in to the government website to voice their opposition to what’s been dubbed the East Glenbow Dam option, a new reservoir between Cochrane and the Bearspaw Dam between Cochrane and Calgary.

He’s urging Albertans to fill out the online survey and come to a public information meeting he’s organizing on May 4 at the Frank Wills Hall in Cochrane from noon to 2 pm.

The other two options include relocating and expanding the Ghost reservoir or the dam in Morley, although the Morley option has been abruptly removed from the public feedback process, with no explanation from Alberta Environment and Protected Areas.

The feedback process is now entering Stage Two, which includes a detailed hydrological study and potential selection of an option to proceed to Phase 3.

This round of engagement focuses on the Relocated Ghost Dam and Glenbow East options only.

The Morley option, according to the AEPA website, “is not ready for public engagement at this time.”

To fill out the survey or get more information go to alberta.ca/bow-river-reservoir-options-engagement.

A decision from the feasibility study expected at the end of 2024.

If a decision is indeed made to proceed to Phase Three, (engineering and regulatory approval) that would spark the detailed design and engineering of the recommended option, and pursuit of all required regulatory approvals. Phase Three would have an estimated timeline of 2025 to 2030.

The new reservoir could be in operation as soon as 2034.

Farkas noted a 2020 conceptual assessment done for Alberta Environment and Protected Places shows the berm of a dam for the Glenbow East option would run right through the pavilion building of Haskayne Legacy Park, and potentially submerge the western portion of the park that was only opened to the public last October.

If the Glenbow East option is built, Farkas said much of the Glenbow Ranch Park’s conservation lands outside of the park (valued at more than $8 million) will be lost, while about a third of Glenbow Ranch would be flooded, including historic grasslands that contribute to overall watershed health.

The two parks are the site of more than two dozen archaeological digs by the University of Calgary, many of which show uses of stone by First Nations people and include tipi rings and fire-broken rock.

And Farkas added that by flooding the tight narrows between the two parks, “the dream of a Calgary-to-Cochrane Bow River trail connection will be permanently impossible.”

Well-known philanthropists Dick and Lois Haskayne donated the land for the Legacy Park, valued at $5 million, and added $2 million towards the construction of the pavilion.

In the same 2020 government assessment, the estimated cost for Glenbow East would be $992 million, with Ghost Dam and Morley options at $917 million and $922 million respectively. The Morley price tag doesn’t include land swaps and other possible compensation.

At least 14 homes, it said, would be inundated by the dam-created reservoir, while “wildlife corridors on both sides of the river would be impacted.”

Farkas, in an open letter, said the GRPF supports the expansion of the Ghost Dam as their preferred option:

“This alternative significantly reduces the challenges associated with flood and drought management: Cochrane will be protected from a future flood, with protection upstream, Cochrane will be protected from a future drought, with more water available upstream during a water shortage, (and) no public parks will be lost.”

The province says it’ll announce a decision on the Bow River options early next year and insists it favours none of them.

Ryan Fournier, Press Secretary for Environment and Protected Places Minister Rebecca Schulz, in an emailed statement, said the department had done it’s due diligence:

“By any standard, engagement on the Bow River Reservoir options has been extensive and far-reaching. We have been engaging with public and local stakeholders on the Bow River Reservoir options for nearly three years.

“Engagement conducted from 2021-23 included virtual live sessions, in-person meetings with property owners, online webinars and dozens of meetings with stakeholder groups, including the Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation. The current public engagement is a follow-up to that important work.

“In total, more than three years of consultation will have been conducted on this project. The Morley site remains an option but is not ready for public engagement at this time.

“We will keep Albertans updated as this work continues.”

Maya Lin Studio has been attached to a new rooftop garden terrace project at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta.

The 13,000-square-foot design will complement the new $120 million renovation and expansion scheme from DIALOG that was announced in September of 2021. It will include an all-season pavilion structure, event spaces, and sculpture gardens surrounding a central oculus skylight that doubles as a lightwell for the new JR Shaw Centre for Art & Culture. Lin says the space will “afford a welcoming place that will invite visitors to connect to art, landscape, and the city of Calgary.” The project will be her first-ever work in Canada.

“This idea that we are recycling a building in the center of downtown Calgary and making something new out of it while utilizing as much of the old building was a huge draw for me. If we can use an existing building in a better way, it is a lot more energy-efficient, it is a lot more material-efficient, and it sends a very different message about resource consumption and directly counters attitudes about a throwaway culture,” Lin described her motivation in pursuing the design.

The museum will now reopen in mid-2026 and is being undertaken in order to make the 56-year-old institution more accessible to the public. It is one of the most significant adaptive reuse projects in the country to date, calling on its existing Brutalist structure from 1976 to be completely “re-skinned” in ultra-lightweight cladding to afford outside views of the museum. The Glenbow says this helps to create a new identity that’s “far more conducive to the important current conversations around cultural inclusion happening in Canada and across the globe.”

“Working with Maya Lin to reimagine Glenbow represents a significant new chapter in the revitalization of Calgary’s downtown,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said in a press statement. “The incorporation of international mastery alongside an incredible team of local experts is a true reflection of what makes Calgary such a unique place.”

Lin is also working on commissions for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and the 68,000-square-foot Museum of Chinese in America expansion in New York City. Another building project, a 25,000-square-foot studio space to complement the Fisher Center at Bard College, broke ground this year in Upstate New York.

Glenbow School has a heritage of teaching its students to be stewards of the environment, so it was a natural fit to pursue an EcoSchool certification.

What they didn't expect to achieve was the highest level of certification offered by the nationwide program.

"This was our first opportunity to get certified through EcoSchools," says Glenbow principal Jason Billings. "We had set the bar fairly low for ourselves being our first year. We were just looking for bronze certification, but there were so many initiatives that our school was interested in doing, we earned enough points to get the platinum certification."

Billings, who is just completing his second year as principal at Glenbow, knew of the EcoSchools program and encouraged the school to become involved.

"I thought it was a good opportunity to recognize the effort that all of the students and staff put into these types of activities and initiatives. It was a nice way to celebrate the positive environmental impact that we do have as a school. It's a way to provide students with some leadership and some ownership in these activities and to celebrate all of their hard work."

Since 2005, EcoSchools Canada’s award-winning certification framework has provided independent reporting and recognition for schools and outdoor and environmental education centres. It reaches out to about one million students annually and is the largest bilingual, voluntary environmental certification program for K-12 schools in Canada.

Jenn Jensen, one of the three teachers coordinating the student-driven Eco Squad, began teaching at Glenbow 10 years ago near the beginning of the major push to be an environmentally-conscious school.

"We were doing many different initiatives," she explains. "We had a committee and we met monthly to talk about environmental actions that we could do as a school. So I think that's where a lot of our programs got set up."

The school already has a long-established compost program and community garden. Students plant seeds in the spring, harvest their crops in the fall, then celebrate by preparing and serving stone soup around Thanksgiving.

They also hold garbage pick-up days and recycle and repurpose paper.

With the creation of the EcoSquad, lead by a team of grade 3 and 4 students, they've added even more.

They have established bins for GOOS (Good On One Side) paper throughout the school and turned old t-shirts and textiles into reuseable bags. They've been working on a pollinator garden to assist the bee population, plus they've connected with the Cochrane Eco Centre.

And then there's the highly inventive Great Gulp event, held during Earth Week, that promoted the use of reusable water bottles as opposed to single-use bottles.

They went class to class to provide education on the negative impact plastic bottles have on the environment and got the students fired up to gather outside for The Great Gulp, where they simultaneously took a drink out of individual reuseable bottles to promote their use.

"It was really neat because they wanted everyone in the school to have a water bottle," says Jensen. "They were even writing letters to community members to see who could donate bottles to those kids who maybe didn't have a water bottle. It was a pretty neat process to see them come up with these ideas and then to bring them to fruition."

Jensen believes strongly in how the program is designed to be student-driven. The EcoSquad is a group of grade 3 and 4 students who meet every Monday with the teachers coordinating the initiative.

"Even though we do a lot of these other practices in the school, with EcoSchools, it has to be delivered by the students. They have to do the education, they have to go around and educate others. So it's been kind of nice that it's the kids are saying, hey, let's do this, let's tackle this project. As teachers, we kind of guide them along."

Since 2005, EcoSchools Canada’s award-winning certification framework has provided independent reporting and recognition for schools and outdoor and environmental education centres. Reaching about one million students annually, it is the largest bilingual, voluntary environmental certification program for K-12 schools in Canada.

Billings says to be certified you must document all your initiatives and submit them to EcoSchools, then complete the activities on their website to earn points. When you hit over 100 points, you earn platinum status.

There are bronze, silver, and gold certifications awarded. Schools that certify at platinum are equivalent to Green Flag schools in the international EcoSchools program.

"Quite a bit of work went into documenting and sharing and so the EcoSchools committee that we've got here they've done a lot of extra work in charting and documenting all of the stuff our students have done this year."

The school year wraps up today but the groundwork is already underway for next year. Recertification is required each school year.

"They do have some other ideas and initiatives that we may look at doing next year. Our Eco Squad, once everyone gets together, they'll be able to determine and come up with a bit of a plan for next year."

In Rocky View Schools, both Cochrane and Chestermere High are also certified as EcoSchools.