By Thia James

PHOTOS: Anti-flood barrier being built to shield structure in Little Red park

Jun 24, 2013 | 4:46 PM

The City of Prince Albert is putting up a protective barrier to protect Cosmo Lodge from flood waters in Little Red River Park, and it expects the work to be completed Monday afternoon.

The Prince Albert Fire Department, representatives with the province and city staff are erecting a three-foot re-enforced cardboard and plastic barrier – a Hesco barrier.

City manager Robert Cotterill said they are able to take sand and fill the inside of the barrier’s container.

He said the flood waters are “not close right now” to Cosmo Lodge.

“We figure there’s about four feet in elevation between the Lodge and the river. Our concern right now is when the two rivers meet, when they’re both at peak, how much will it back up towards the building? That will give us about seven feet of free board before the Lodge would be flooded.”

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The North Saskatchewan River is expected to reach peak levels on Thursday. Cotterill said that Little Red River is continuing to stay at the same level, as water is slowly drained out of Anglin Lake.

“The levels [on the North Saskatchewan] appear to be similar to what we experienced during the spring run-off and breakup, which we estimate to be something like about a one-in-30 year storm. [A] storm event which would not, we don’t believe we’ll get flooding within the urban part of the city.”

At Little Red River Park, which remains closed due to flooding, much of the problem is in the valleys.

“The worst is going to be here on Thursday,” Cotterill said.

He said Cosmo Lodge is the only structure within the park other than bridges that city officials feel they need to try to save.

“It’s a fairly expensive building. It would be silly of us not to take … preventative measures when we know that we’re going to have the event on Thursday. We may be lucky and it doesn’t back up that much within the park and it might not be needed, but we’re not going to take the chance.”

Additionally, there are no concerns about water quality
being affected by the rising river levels.

“When we made the changes that we did last year and put the Actiflo system into the water treatment plant, it’s designed to handle the turbidity levels that we expect to experience on Thursday.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames