Alberta's 'King of the Fish' says he is broke and desperate for help

Robert Allen, owner of Alberta Trout Inc. located in the Lott Creek area near Elbow Valley, will be the first to admit he has both made and lost several fortunes in his life.

But nothing could have prepared him for the gravity of the loss he took in 2005 when nearby Lott Creek flooded over his property, essentially wiping out his steelhead trout stocking operation.

Allen bought his current property where the surviving remnants of his trout farm still stand in 1971, but his history in the fish business goes back a decade before. He once stocked lakes and ponds all over western Canada.

“I was the so-called King of the Fish because I was the biggest one,” recalled Allen. 

The money was rolling in, he admits, and he went a little crazy on his outside investments and interests, leveraging these fish funds thinking the good times would last forever.

By 2005, he had also expanded his core trout operation into 24 holding ponds with 200,000 fish, and its own attached hatchery. 

Then the flood came.

“The water came through the (Lott Creek Cove) subdivision and came down here through my land. It just wrecked everything,” recalled Allen. “When they designed the subdivision, they diverted Lott Creek through the houses, and shoved it right down onto me. It could have easily run down the original natural channel, but they blocked it and sent it (upstream of me).”

He, of course, sued the developers, but they had covered their liability with an engineering report which muddied the waters, said Allen, and eventually he couldn’t afford to continue the case.

He next tried the government, turning to Alberta Environment with the hopes of getting compensation for his loss. They offered $75,000, which was far too little, Allen felt, and he rejected the settlement. 

He has spent the last 19 years writing to successive Alberta Environment ministers seeking redress, but that effort too has borne no fruit.

To make matters worse, Allen said the ministry has shut down his trout stocking business. 

When Lott Creek flooded his property, it brought traces of Whirling disease into his freshwater spring.

“In 2005 they literally destroyed me and took my (stocking) licence away,” Allen explained.

In 2017, he was dealt another blow when the Alberta government told him he could only sell his remaining fish as “for eating only.” Meaning they would have to be processed professionally in order to be sold to customers.

With the King of the Fish essentially forced to give up his crown, the now 85-year-old Allen has sought other ways to maximize his last 14 acres of what was once a half section of prime property.

He has tried numerous development and subdivision applications, but has found himself blocked by another major impediment: nearby developers obtained an easement through the City of Calgary to put a sewer line across Allen’s property to serve the adjacent golf course and subdivisions in 2002. 

At the time Allen thought it was a good deal, and he produces a copy of a letter from the developer, Elbow Valley Joint Venture Group, which confirms, in writing, he would be able to link onto the line for his own future development purposes. However, there was a condition Allen did not give much thought to at the time.

“We find your conditions reasonable,” the developer’s letter states, “and do confirm that you may connect to the Elbow Valley sanitary system, free of any hook up fee, assuming you possess all the governmental approvals required.”

It is the last line which has been Allen’s bane for the past 19 years. He can’t get the approvals to hook on from the City of Calgary no matter how much he has tried.

“The City of Calgary built a sewer line right through my property, and they are saying I cannot hook onto it because there is not enough capacity in the line.”

Without a sewer and waterline hook up, Rocky View County (RVC) has also been reluctant to approve any new subdivisions on Allen’s property.

“Several planning applications have been submitted to the County for this property in recent years and the neighbouring lands to the east, which are part of the Elbow Valley Area Structure Plan and the Lott Creek Land Use Concept (Elbow Valley ASP),” confirmed Dominic Kazmierczak, manager of planning with RVC when asked about the case. “You are correct in noting that this area has had challenges to overcome including flood risk, vehicular access points, and obtaining access to water and wastewater servicing.”

According to Kazmierczak, the three most recent applications have included a boundary adjustment in 2016 between four lots, including Allen’s lands. 

“This was approved in October 2017, but the applicants were not able to meet the conditions of approval and the approval lapsed,” he stated.

A subdivision proposal to create two new lots within Allen’s lands was submitted in August 2018. 

“This was processed and circulated to adjacent landowners and agencies, but there was no activity on the file after August 2018 and the file was eventually closed in 2021.”

A multi-lot subdivision application was submitted in January 2024, but Kazmierczak said this was missing information on water and wastewater servicing, and Allen did not appeal when the application was eventually declined due to this missing information.

Allen admits his inability to follow up on these applications comes down to money.

“It was going from being pretty well off to being absolutely flat broke,” he said sadly as he hand feeds some of his last remaining fish. “It’s scary. I have absolutely no income at all. All I got is my old age pension, and that’s pretty skimpy. The only thing that will save me is a subdivision.”