THE TRI-RIVER JOINT RESERVOIR OF ALBERTA

There are four rivers that historically cause destructive floods in the spring in the Bow River Basin. They are the Elbow, the Sheep, the Highwood and the Bow Rivers. Through studying and researching Government of Alberta and University of Calgary files, and his personal knowledge of the mountains, Dr. Gabriel found a perfect location to which the headwaters of the Elbow, Sheep and Highwood could be diverted to a flow-through reservoir (or water bank) in the spring during dangerously high flow events. This valley, which is 1 km wide and 30 km long, is a gift from nature. To prevent flooding to communities along the Elbow River, a tunnel could be drilled through the ridge separating the Elbow river from this valley in a way to divert high flows when they posed the threat of downstream flooding. Once approval was given, it would only take 2-3 months to complete this tunnel and provide protection to all the Elbow River communities. The Springbank Off-stream Dry Dam and the McLean Creek dam would need to be fully completed before they could provide any protection. This valley could safely hold more than ten times the volume of SR1 or MC1. The 800 meter mountains would provide the walls and no roads, buildings or gas and power lines would need to be moved, as would be the case with the other options. The Sheep and Highwood rivers also pass through this valley. In high flow events, they too could be diverted to a large, canyon shaped area for storage of pure, high quality water from the snowpack and glaciers which provide 80% of the waters reaching our rivers. In times of accelerated high snowpack melt caused by heavy rainfall or sudden warming, any affected river could be managed, if it was posing a danger, by regulating the flow from the reservoir. In 2013 the Bassano Dam was nearly overcome and, if it had been, thousands of farmers and businesses in Southern Alberta faced economic disaster. The flood level flows from the Sheep and Highwood Rivers had joined the Bow upstream from this dam and caused this near disaster. TRJR would mitigate this danger in future by regulating these flows.