The city is ramping up its river repair work while it still can.
"The window we are working with right now is the summer window," said René Letourneau, senior project engineer with the City of Calgary's infrastructure delivery, water resources. "In the spring and fall, fish are either spawning or migrating and we don’t want to be impacting that critical stage of life."
Environmental legislation allows the city less than two months to repair or modify riverfront property.
Staff will create small, temporary dams around work areas to keep fish away. Those that do make it through will be captured and released downstream.
"For Calgary the real challenge is we are restricted to the eight weeks in the summer and there is a lot of activity around the rivers” said Letourneau. "We try not to impact rafters too much, we’re providing space for them to go through. We also want to protect our trout population which attracts fishermen from around the country."
The City continues to compile a list of river infrastructure in need of maintenance. The list got a lot longer after the 2013 flood but the City says most of that repair work is now complete.
