Relocated Ghost Dam chosen as new Bow River flood mitigation option

The Alberta government says it has chosen a location for a new Bow River reservoir project that will aim to prevent flooding downstream.

In a news release on Wednesday, the province says they will explore the relocated Ghost Dam option because it has a smaller footprint.

The other Glenbow East option posed a higher risk, according to the government, who says it would have been more “susceptible to erosion and failure during large floods.”

“Increasing water storage capacity is critical to protecting Calgary and other communities along the Bow River from future floods and drought,” said Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz in a statement. “Based on the data collected in the study, one option, the relocated Ghost Dam, is clearly the best choice to move forward with.”

Former Calgary city councillor Jeromy Farkas is CEO of the Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation that opposed the reservoir at Glenbow East. The group was pushing the province to replace and modernize the Ghost Reservoir west of Cochrane.

The group had expressed concerns with the impact the project could have on Glenbow Ranch, as well as Bearspaw and Haskayne Legacy Parks.

“It’s a huge weight off of our shoulders,” Farkas says. “Over the last year, as the government’s been studying whether or not to flood the park, it’s really put a lot of our more ambitious plans on hold.”

He says he was surprised the government was even considering flooding the parks only a few years after they opened.

“We just knew it was a complete non-starter,” he says.

The province is now moving to the engineering and approval phase of the project and will share more on the work in 2025.