County exploring options to increase water infrastructure
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wheatland County Coun. Tom Ikert, during the Nov. 22 regular county council meeting, introduced a discussion regarding an idea to develop more access to water within the county.
Prior to the meeting of council, Ikert inquired to county administration about how to approach bringing forward a project which would involve Bruce Lakes – bodies of water located north of HWY 564, and west of Nightingale.
“The problem we are going to run into in the county is, we are going to run into a water problem. At the RMA (Rural Municipalities of Alberta), I talked to several councillors in Rocky View … Rocky View will look at more water, that is not a problem,” said Ikert. “We need water, WID (Wheatland Irrigation District) needs irrigation, which, the Bruce Lake location is about (32 kilometers) from the City of Calgary, so there is a recreational possibility there, also there is a possibility that, if we can take some of the burden off of the Bow River Basin, that Calgary might buy in on this, and I can assume because Airdrie is only 20 (kilometers) away that they might also be in the same situation.”
Ikert inquired to Wheatland County Council about directing administration to start looking at the idea as a multi-municipality operation.
“I understand it is a massive undertaking; it will be a big, big project … and if we can find out why it was stopped, maybe we can correct that,” he said. “I do not see any other way to bring enough water into the county without somehow tying into the Red Deer River basin. It is the only thing that makes sense to me.”
He added in previous discussions with the WID, storage issues have been brought up on multiple occasions, and that a project involving Bruce Lakes would be too large for any one municipality to take on alone. Similarly, the necessity to involve the provincial government was mentioned during Wheatland County Council’s discussion.
Ikert motioned to direct administration to find historical documentation on Bruce Lake and reach out to parties they believe may be beneficial to the project. This was determined to be the WID, as well as Rocky View County, whose jurisdiction Bruce Lakes are technically located under.
Brian Henderson, speaking on behalf of County Administration, said while the county was a part of the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB), there were additional hurdles regarding the previous introduction of a similar project, which was ultimately abandoned.
“The biggest problem that I remember with CMRB was, there is a lot of water in the river in the spring, and it flows by, so something like this would be ideal if we could capture some of that spring runoff and store it for a while,” he explained.
Ikert’s motion was ultimately carried by county council. No further information regarding the potential project’s details or Administration’s direction has been made available.