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Slack Slough education centre project gathering momentum in Red Deer

Pandemic slowed efforts to gather support for a wetlands education centre
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Slack Slough south of Red Deer is a stopping place for nearly 100 species of birds. (Advocate file photo)

A project to build a wetlands education centre perched near Slack Slough south of Red Deer is regaining momentum.

The initiative was already in the early planning stages with Rotary Club of Red Deer taking the lead when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.

“We were moving along on it quite well then, of course, COVID hit,” said Bob Mills, a member of the Rotary Wetlands Education Centre steering committee and a former Red Deer MP. “Approaching companies and approaching government was very difficult for all of last year.

“Now, we’ve got going again and we’re working with Legacy Land Trust and we’re in the final stages of having land set aside an environment conservation area.”

Mills proposed the project to the Rotary Club when it offered $1 million for a legacy project, in celebration of the club’s 100th anniversary in 2023. Slack Slough beat out 16 other proposals to become the one Rotary would take the lead on and recruit other organizations, businesses, individual donors and government departments to make it happen.

Mills has a significant personal stake in the project. He is working with Legacy Land Trust so 140 acres of his property just south of the 98-acre slough can be incorporated into the protected area. The land trust would be in charge of overseeing and preserving the area in perpetuity.

No one was better positioned than Mills, who has lived near the slough for nearly 50 years, to see that as the City of Red Deer and Red Deer County grew, the wetland was at risk of being surrounded and diminished by development.

To lose or damage the wetlands would mean a key migratory stop for nearly 100 species of birds would be endangered.

“This year, has been probably the best migration we’ve ever seen,” he said.

Thousands of geese, including snow geese, sandhill cranes, tundra swans and numerous species of ducks and other migratory waterfowl made the stop at Slack Slough on migrations of thousands of kilometres. In all, 96 species have been identified as using the area.

The importance of the site has been known for a long time. In 1923, the federal government set it aside as a migratory bird sanctuary. Much more recently, it has been identified by Red Deer County as an ecologically sensitive area.

But Mills and others behind the project want to do more than preserve the site. They want to see it turned into a gateway that showcases environmental innovation while educating the public about the critical role wetlands play.

“It would be a place to teach people about the importance of water, wetlands and nature,” he said. Olds College and Red Deer Polytechnic, the Kerry Wood Nature Centre are also expected to be involved.

It is hoped to spread that message through a wetland education centre expected to cost around $6 million or more.

Mills said the Rotary Club is in the final stages of setting up and registering a committee to take the project — tentatively to be called Rotary Wetlands Education Centre — forward while reaching out to the federal and provincial governments for funding help.



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