City crews hope that a giant water balloon could help residents keep their feet dry under Ray Gibbon Drive, but initial tests suggest this idea might be all wet.
City crews deployed an AquaDam flood barrier along the trail under the Ray Gibbon Drive overpass Thursday. The barrier is a water-filled black plastic bag that’s meant to act as a temporary wall during floods.
St. Albert’s trails – particularly the bit under Ray Gibbon – regularly flood each spring when water levels in the Sturgeon rise, said city parks manager Louise Stewart. The city has deployed a $100,000 metal walkway under Ray Gibbon each spring since 2014 to compensate, but that device takes about 12 people a full day to install and gets damaged every time it’s used.
The city has had a set of Edmonton-made AquaDam barriers for emergency flood control for the last seven years but has never used them, said St. Albert city arborist Kevin Veenstra. This year, they decided to see if the barriers could act as an alternative to the ramp.
The device consists of an inner water bag inside a longer outer sack and is about three feet wide when deployed, Veenstra – who helped install it – said. The weight of the water in the bag holds the dam in place. You can link multiple 100-foot bags together, each of which costs about $3,000.
“It’s like a giant waterbed,” he said, which he demonstrated by walking along its squishy surface.
Crews used the AquaDam and a pump to clear 200 feet of trail under Ray Gibbon.
Veenstra said the dam is pretty easy to use and can be installed by just two people.
“This is perfect,” he said of it as a flood solution, as you can make it as long as needed.
Stewart said the city would monitor the dam’s performance this season before it deploys it on other flooded paths. The bag takes up about half the trail, which means it might not fit on every path.
“Our only concern is some kid walking around with a knife and slashing it,” she said.
If the dam works, the city might use the old metal walkway to help people get to the boat launch by the Big Lake Environment Support Society shelter, Stewart said. She expects the dam will be in place until the spring flood ends in mid-May.
While the trail was clear for at least part of Thursday, BLESS board member Tony Druett provided the Gazette with photos taken Friday morning showing that the area behind the barrier had flooded again.
