Mayor Terry Yemen, Chief Administrative Officer Ray Romantez met with provinicial officials
Thursday in Drumheller to iron out issues including flood mappin for the area. Infrastructure Services and Planning departments for the Town were also in attendance.
The Town of Drumheller met with provincial officials in Drumheller Thursday to discuss flood related issues affecting Drumheller that came as a result the high water event of 2013.
“I felt it was a very positive meeting,” said Mayor Terry Yemen. “They have a clear understanding of what our expectations are.”
Yemen said the main discussion in the meeting focused on flood mapping and the flood exemption zone.
He said land use was also discussed at the meeting, but that everything is hinging on the flood mapping.
The Mayor noted the province’s current mapping still shows mostly floodway, and the Town would like that updated.
“There was some consensus. There still will be a floodway, but it’ll be very minimal to what there is right now,” says Yemen.
Yemen said the majority of what the Alberta Government map currently shows would be exemption, because of mitigated flows from the dam and flood mitigation work the Town has done.
“We’ll be looking at an exemption zone , which will be the majority of what is currently a flood zone. Then there will be the flood fringe, which we already had established,” Yemen explained.
He said new mapping would have most of the flood way as an exemption zone (all through different parts of Drumheller from Midland to Rosedale).
The province would like the Town to take the lead on an engineering study and cost analysis of mitigation versus relocation for certain areas, such as Lehigh, and provides funding for staff position to accomplish that.
The Town also reiterated at the meeting its position on flood mitigation funding, pointing out the provincial agreement from 1985 and the Town’s view current projects are an extension of that agreement.
Yemen notes that property buy outs are still on the table.
The Mayor said it’s all back in the hands of the province for approval, although the Town wasn’t given a definite time frame for the Town to expect answers back.
“There’s still lots of questions that have to be answered. It’s unfortunate some of these questions couldn’t have been answered months ago.”
