Waskasoo Park visitors may have to step off the beaten path this summer, but the diversion is only temporary, the City of Red Deer is promising.
“As everyone probably knows already, the snow loads this year through the winter were much higher than average for Red Deer,” said Trevor Poth, parks superintendent with the City of Red Deer.
As a result, the trail became dangerously eroded just south of 32nd Street, due to an increased, consistent flow through the tributary creek systems of Waskasoo and Piper Creeks this spring, Poth said.
“The erosion was close enough to the trail that it caused some concerns for public safety,” Poth said.
City Environmental Services Department workers were due to replace a waterline in the same area this fall, and Poth said rather than tear up the trail twice, the city has chosen to do a temporary realignment of the trail using recycled asphalt chips. A temporary barrier system is in place around the area of danger as well.
After the waterline is fixed in the fall, a full reclamation of the trail will be completed by the summer of 2012, when it becomes warm enough for contractors to lay down fresh asphalt, Poth said.
In the meantime, the city is asking roller bladers and skateboarders using the trail to exercise caution and observe the signs in the area, which indicate that the smooth trail underneath them is about to get rough.
“The last thing we want is for someone to be thrown forward when they hit the gravel,” Poth said.
Poth said that several other areas in the park have been seriously eroded, but only when park infrastructure (pathways, trails, benches) is affected, will the city act.
“All erosion within a creek system is a natural process,” Poth said.
“Where it doesn’t impact infrastructure, we try to let nature run its course and let Mother Nature do what she does so well.”