A bulldozer pushes dirt on a flood berm built by MJB Enterprises east of the Medalta Pottery site near the Seven Person's Creek in this file photo. Work on the final leg of the Industrial Avenue berm is now underway.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Work is underway on the final leg of the Industrial Avenue berm, which itself is the final piece of permanent floodwall in a mitigation plan created after the 2013 flood.
Crews have built a temporary roadway near the site for vehicles going to and from the city to Highway 41A, and enacted the detour Tuesday morning to build up the road section and essentially join two complete berms on either side.
“They are building up the roadway to berm grade,” said Carlie Collier, the city’s lead engineer on flood projects. “It will be a gradual grade – a noticeable hill – as it comes up to the berm elevation, but all within standard.”
The remainder of the section was completed over the last three weeks by contractor Industrial Backhoes in a field north of the roadway and east of the Medalta Potteries site.
The detour could last three weeks, said Collier, while final work and cleanup could be complete in mid to late October.
“It will be very nice to have it finished,” she said.
Work in the area was among the last items in an eight-year-old flood protection program devised after the 2013 flood. (Work on the Harlow Phase II berm was considered complete in August).
In 2017, with land acquisition and environmental testing delaying work on a portion of the Industrial Avenue plan, administrators moved to a phased approach.
The current work will essentially extend the Lion’s Park berm, complete in early 2016, and an initial section of the Industrial Avenue berm, completed in 2018, to yet another phase built along the Seven Persons Creek the following year.
At the time, officials stated the completion of the entire berm would put about 1,200 residences behind a permanent flood wall, away from creek backup that caused damage in 1995, 2005, 2010 and 2013.
The final site once housed a porcelain factory that burned down in the early 1970s.
As well, a spur line to the former I-XL brick plant (now a museum connected to the Medalta Historic Clay District effort) bisected the berm right of way.
Sewer work in NE
Water and sewer pipe replacements in northeast Crescent Heights will require detours and delays near Crescent Heights High School for the next six weeks, the city’s environmental utilities department has announced.
The intersection of 12th Street and Second Avenue NE near the school will be closed after nearby work in the area this summer affected only local traffic.
A turnaround will be allowed for drop off and pickup from the school’s main entrance.
Echo Dale drained
Crews have drained the Echo Dale boating lake in order to complete irrigation upgrades at the regional park west of Medicine Hat. That $340,000 project, paid for mostly with federal grants, will allow the expansion of irrigation toward a planned grove of trees in the eastern portion near an existing group camping site.
The stocked lake should be refilled in early October.
The separate swimming lake was closed on Sept. 6 as lifeguards are no longer on duty.
