The City of Grande Prairie is working on a pair of projects meant to deal with flooding issues in the Richmond Industrial Park area. It recently received a $1.6 million grant from the province to build a new outfall for storm water at 108 Street and 92 Avenue.
That intersection and the one with 89 Avenue are often the first to suffer from flooding during times of heavy rainfall. Drainage & Environmental Supervisor Richard Sali says they’re working to improve drainage through the Canfor yard.
“There’s some bottlenecks within there,” he explains. “This will give us the opportunity to clean out that ditch, replace some of the culverts within that channel, and then it will help our water to flow better to get towards the creek.”
Sali says the area has been an issue for flooding for several years, and some work was done five years ago to improve the outlet and inlet at the end of the channel.
It’s estimated this round will cost roughly $1.8 million. The detailed engineering of the project should be done over the next couple of months, meaning the earliest crews could start is likely late September or early in the 2019 construction season.
“Most of this will probably be done through the Canfor yard,” adds Sali. “There may be some work directly adjacent to 108 [Street] but there shouldn’t be anything that really backs up the traffic through there.”
The other project in the works for the area is the Richmond storm ponds, which will be before city council Monday night. The Infrastructure & Protective Services Committee has recommended awarding a tender for that and the North Lot 8 U Storage Project to Green Acre Ventures for nearly $3.2 million.
“They are going to both help within the same area, because the pond that they’re creating will kind of back some of that water up so that instead of flooding the street there,” Sali says. “We’re creating a pond that it’ll surge into before hand to lessen the impact on the pipes, so the pipes won’t be running as full.”
The storm pond improvements were recommended a 2013 study on the Richmond Industrial Park Storm Basin to help alleviate flooding in the area during major storm events. A storm drainage master plan is also in the works this year.
