There was no shortage of irony in what became the biggest story of 2024 – a billion dollar project designed to mitigate flood damage would likely cause considerable flood damage, destroy a newly-created park and cause untold infrastructure damage in Cochrane.
Yet the provincial government forged ahead with the study of a proposed dam location on the Bow River east of Cochrane in face of ongoing protests.
Going back to April, opponents had 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. The other two options included relocating and expanding the Ghost reservoir or the dam in Morley, although the Morley option was abruptly removed from the public feedback process, with no explanation from AEPA.
Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation’s new CEO Jeromy Farkas led the charge against the East Glenbow option, one of three scenarios floated by Alberta Environment and Protected Areas (AEPA).
An online survey was posted by AEPA in April and Farkas launched a series of public meetings.
He said in April the reason the issue was 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 – an idea that had been floated as a trial balloon for many years.
In 2013, the southern Alberta flood caused more than $5 billion in damage in Calgary and surrounding communities.
Along with the Bow River reservoir, Alberta is also developing the Springbank Off-stream Reservoir to provide protection along the Elbow River in Calgary and other downstream communities as part of an overall flood mitigation system.
If built, the East Glenbow dam would have flooded out the Haskayne Legacy Park, which had its ribbon-cutting less than a year earlier. It would have done extensive damage to Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park as well.
“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.
Well-known philanthropists Dick and Lois Haskayne donated the land for the adjacent Legacy Park valued at $5 million, and added $2 million towards the construction of the pavilion. They were promised the park and pavilion would be protected in perpetuity.
Lois Haskayne told The Eagle that when they were in talks with the government about their contribution to create the park east of Cochrane, they were never told anything about a possibility of a new dam on the Bow River looming in the foreseeable future, and only found out about it after the fact.
“Of course we were horrified. If any other people knew about it, they didn’t disclose it to us,” she said.
Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung said in the summer he was “baffled” the province was still even considering it.
“People don’t realize this is under review. And they also don’t realize it would flood parts of Cochrane and wouldn’t protect it one tiny bit,” Farkas said.
The public engagement process was sadly lacking, in his view.
“So we’re going to step up and fill that gap,” Farkas said.
Three townhall meetings, a letter writing campaign, advertising, and a petition later, the opponents of the dam finally got the news they were hoping for on Sep.25 when AEPA announced they were dropping the Glenbow East option in favour of expanding and relocating the Ghost Reservoir upstream of the town.
Farkas was overjoyed when the province released its decision.
“We're jubilant. Over the past year as we've gone through this process there's been so many sleepless nights, there's been a dark cloud over both of the parks and we know that everyone's going to sleep a lot easier tonight,” he said In September.
He said much important work was in limbo as the dam issue lingered.
“We have so much that we want to do here. We want to expand the size of the park. We want to grow our services, build more trails, work with Cochrane Rotary to build that trail connection into Cochrane . . . there's so much that was put on hold because of the storm clouds of a possible dam,” he said.
“It's just a huge relief and a big win for advocacy. If it weren't for Cochrane residents speaking up in such a big way about how important these parks were, we could have easily had a different result,” Farkas said.
The AEPA statement said “After reviewing multiple options, the Alberta government has determined that the relocated Ghost Dam option is significantly better than the Glenbow East option due to its lower cost, ability to mitigate future droughts and floods, and fewer social and environmental impacts.”
Looking back on the story this week, Genung said leaving the dam as an open possibility for so long was hard to understand.
“On the surface, it was ridiculous. I went to the opening of Haskayne Legacy Park, and at the time it was the largest land donation in Calgary’s history by the Haskayne family,” he said.
“So it’s not a small piece (of land), and that’s not the only thing they’ve done for this province.”
He was deeply moved by the comments made by Lois Haskayne at the grand opening.
“I get chills thinking about it. It was just such a genuine good feeling, so for (the Province) to put that at risk . . . it just felt so disingenuous.”
