Weeks of hard work lay ahead to bring one of the region’s campgrounds back to full operation after it was almost wiped out in the 2013 flood.
The Foothills Lions Club had hoped to have all sites in the Bob Lochhead Memorial Park open by the middle of June.
However, it will be several weeks yet before work is complete on the north end of the Black Diamond campground, said James Lee, chairman of the reconstruction committee with the Foothills Lions Club.
Installation of the water and sewer pipes was completed a month ago and the club is waiting on quotes before work can begin on installing power to each of the sites.
Once that’s complete, work crews can begin paving the road and a pathway on the berm running adjacent to the campground and landscape the 22 sites, Lee said.
“There is nothing we can do to expedite the process,” Lee said. “We just have to be patient and know that it’s going to be best for the future of the community and for us as operators.”
The campground was severely damaged when the Sheep River flooded its 68 sites, carrying away buildings, picnic tables and fire pits and washing away land.
The Foothills Lions Club, with assistance from the Province’s Disaster Relief Program (DRP) funding, reestablished 27 full service sites and a tenting area at the south end of the campground last year and is working on repairing 22 additional sites with the remainder of the $1.1 million it received in DRP funding to reconstruct the campground. The service club also submitted an application to apply for funding to plant trees in the barren northern portion.
Lee said it’s taken a lot of work on behalf of the Foothills Lions Club to rebuild the campground.
“There’s been a definite increase in the number of hours that we’ve spent just trying to nurture it back and that takes effort,” Lee said. “We’ve had to put a lot of hours in simply to get it up and running.”
The south end of the campground opened to campers on May 1, and has remained full every weekend with any overflow going to Hell’s Half Acre Campground in Turner Valley, said Lee.
He’s eager to see the north portion open.
“We’re thankful for the patience that the public has shown,” he said. “We are sure that people in that neighbourhood are tired of hearing the machines roar every day, but there is a foreseeable end.”
Earlier this spring, Black Diamond Town council approved the Foothills Lions Club’s request for a $100,000 loan to ramp up the campground full service sites from 30 watts to 50. The money will come from the Town’s parks and recreation capital reserve.
Meghan Aebig, project engineer with the Calgary consulting firm Urban Systems and the Town’s flood recovery project manager, said the campground’s existing electrical system has to be redesigned to accommodate large recreational vehicles.
“Back in the day 30 amp service was appropriate for camping,” she said. “Now many campers have huge motor homes and 50 amp services are required.”
Aebig said they are currently working on getting quotes to do the upgrade.
“We don’t have an exact time frame,” she said. “We will have a better idea in the next week or so. Once we get a quote from the contractor that’s reasonable with the budget we have and get FortisAlberta into the service, then we will have a better idea.”
The electrical upgrades will take place at the south end of the campground once the campers are gone for the season, Aebig said.
She added the Town and Foothills Lions Club have the option of opening the north end of the campground to the public and waiting to install the electrical until the end of the camping season.
“We could move the campers in, but they wouldn’t have electrical,” she said. “The electrical contractor could come in later, but it would be quite a bit of a disturbance.”
She expects a decision to be made later this month.
Mayor Sharlene Brown said she is eager to see the campground fully operational once again.
“It’s a big piece of our tourism, it’s a big piece of our community and it’s a vital piece of our economic development, especially coming into the summer months.”
