County residents are being asked to weigh in on the design for a water reservoir at Aldersyde.
The Silver Tip Ranch community was provided with potential design options by Foothills County and invited to a public meeting on Oct. 9 to ask questions of council and administration.
“Two days ago when we received the landscaping plans we were very pleasantly surprised at the effort that’s gone in to what we are going to end up looking at,” said area resident Judith Laybourne. “I wanted to thank you for that.”
She said she appreciates having a 21-metre buffer between the reservoir and her home, so she can still tend to her own yard and run her dogs in the natural area as before.
Her only concerns were with the potential for mosquitoes and odours which the County said should be mitigated by the water moving, not lying stagnant.
Otherwise, she said she would appreciate as much vegetation as possible around the pond.
“As much evergreen vegetation, so that throughout the winter months we’re not just looking at sticks and a bare fence,” said Laybourne. “To that end, I love the idea of the undulating berm so that there is height and a variety of landscape for us to be looking at.”
The raw water reservoir is required by Alberta Environment ahead of building out the new water treatment plant at Aldersyde, said County CEO Harry Riva Cambrin.
“If you look at High River and Okotoks, they do not have any storage for a drought condition,” said Riva Cambrin. “For modern or new plants, the Province no longer will allow you to build one without some type of storage.”
Turner Valley and Black Diamond have a large reservoir, he said.
The County is required to have up to seven months of storage for the new plant, he said. The site between Silver Tip Ranch and Highway 2 was the most cost-effective and logical place to look, he said.
It was already municipal reserve land, he said.
“This particular site is right on the pipe from the river and as well it’s already owned by the municipality,” said Riva Cambrin.
He said it won’t hold the entire supply of water that will be required for the fully built-out water treatment plant, but will hold enough for phases over the first 10 to 15 years.
County planning director Heather Hemingway said council has reiterated its request to pursue detailed engineering for the site and to continue working with residents with respect to landscape design.
The reservoir is required to be operational within the next two years, she said.
Residents were provided with potential landscaping designs that included planting of vegetation, fencing around the pond, and space between the reservoir and the property lines for maintenance access. The County will work with residents on whether the east side will be bermed up or not, she said, and what the reservoir edge should look like.
“They were pretty clear in the spring that they didn’t want to see a pathway,” said Hemingway. “But the design still does allow people to walk their dogs and enjoy the site.”
Hemingway will reach out to the community over the next couple of months to gather their thoughts with regards to landscape design. She said she wanted to give everyone time to process after the meeting.
“I appreciate you can’t just pick an option, that’s not the way it works,” said Hemingway. “They need some time to talk about it, to think about it, to consider.”
She said the drawings will be available to residents and also on display in the Foothills County municipal building lobby. The County will create its final concept based on concerns or thoughts of the community, specifically those adjacent to the pond site, she said.
Glen Brosinski, who lives in Silver Tip but does not back onto the reservoir site, said he appreciates the work of the County in creating options and consulting with residents.
He had concerns about aesthetics.
“I’m very proud of our community, because it is often celebrated as an ideal,” said Brosinski. “We work hard to maintain it, and we don’t want this to wreck that.”
He was also concerned about sound attenuation and wondered whether the County could take that into account while designing its landscape for the reservoir.
Overall, he said he wished there was precedence to draw from experience rather than making Silver Tip a testing site.
“I just want to see this done smartly and done right,” said Brosinski. “I wish this was done somewhere else so we could take the learning from an earlier pond and put them into the next generation.”
One of the residents said she doesn’t want to see the reservoir built at all.
She said there have been numerous studies since the 2013 flood that look at how often decisions made by development put people at increased risk because it alters the environment.
“I strongly oppose the pond due to the numerous risks it presents,” she said. “I feel like we’re getting ahead of ourselves here by talking about landscape when we haven’t fully addressed the risk this proposed pond creates.”
She said the concerns have been brought up and have yet to be addressed.
While she said she understands the County’s desire to build it in a cost-effective location, she said the reservoir risks need to be better assessed before proceeding any further.
She agreed with Brosinski’s wish for precedence.
“This is the first rendering of such a pond and it’s very concerning to me that it’s being done directly behind homes of individuals without having any precedent or lessons learned from a pervious pond,” she said.
