The second phase of a project to boost Dickson Dam’s ability to control floods and manage water supplies will begin this year.
Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation Minister RJ Sigurdson was at the dam on Friday afternoon to announce the project to boost the capacity of an auxiliary spillway to 4,900 cubic metres of water from 2,800 cubic metres per second along with other dam and dyke improvements. Construction is expected to be finished by fall 2026.
The $10.5-million first phase of the dam upgrade completed last October increased the height of the service spillway boosting its capacity to 3,500 cubic metres per second from 2,500 cubic metres.
Sigurdson said the dam project is part of the more than $140 million being spent on a range of projects aimed at securing reliable water supplies for agricultural, municipal, industrial and recreational use as well as guarding against flooding and erosion and protecting fish and wildlife habitats.
Dickson Dam was built in 1983 and has been critical to the development of Red Deer and other downstream communities. Without the dam’s ability to manage water supplies, Red Deer’s population would have maxed out at 40,000 based on available water. Winter flow rates could get as low as two cubic metres per second but now average 16 cubic metres per second year round.
The dam has also been critical to reducing the impact of flooding. Drumheller would have faced severe flooding in 2005 and 2013 if the dam had not been there to hold back floodwaters.
“This is huge for Red Deer and all the communities on the Red Deer River,” said Sigurdson.
Another central Alberta project is a proposal to create a reservoir near Delburne. The province announced a feasibility study for that project and others around the province were being fast-tracked following a $4.5-million cash injection.
Sigurdson said the feasibility study is the “key front-end piece” that will look at what reservoir capacity is needed, environmental impacts and projected costs to ensure it is viable.
If it goes ahead, the new reservoir would play a similar role as the Gleniffer Reservoir to stabilize water flow to provide a reliable water source for downstream users.
Sigurdson’s ministry oversees 80 dams province-wide and 340 kilometres of irrigation canals and flood protection berms and dykes.
Rudy Friesen, executive director of the Red Deer River Municipal Users Group, said the Dickson Dam project was “incredibly important” for the Red Deer River water system, which is among the smaller river systems in the much larger Saskatchewan River System.
The group represents communities in the Red Deer River system from Clearwater County to the Municipal District of Acadia near the Saskatchewan border and its goal is to ensure the long-term sustainability of the water system to support future growth.
The Red Deer River system has only five per cent of the water storage capability of the larger system, highlighting the importance of the dam upgrades, he said.