Prokop speaks on Taber’s wetlands project

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By Kenyon Stronski
Taber Times
reporter@tabertimes.com

The Taber wetlands project has been a long time coming at this point — with the idea first originating back in 2015 alongside the Taber Irrigation District (TID). 

“It seemed very appropriate to deal with that as soon as practical,” commented Mayor Andrew Prokop. “And it takes some time but that’s where it all started and now it’s ended up coming to fruition just this spring.” 

With the official groundbreaking ceremony on April 27, the light is finally at the end of the tunnel with the project. 

“It’s just under $7.5 million in total and $3.2 (million) is covered by the province and $2.9 (million) covered by the federal government. Our total investment of $750,000, plus some other smaller funding sources, we were able to tap into as well. This is a major project, and at the end of the completion of that project, a recreational component will be available too, related to a boardwalk for recreation enthusiasts, photographers and educational services. At this stage, it’s still yet to be designed entirely but it’ll be something similar to what Canmore has going on at their marshland, it’s a very comfortable and appealing atmosphere.”

A boardwalk won’t be the only infrastructure in place at the wetlands, however, as it will also be a valuable place for stormwater to drain to – and that water will be filtered and reused through a variety of things for, “better and higher quality water.” 

“A lot of the stormwater will end up going to that area and it’s not feasible to just let water go into the Taber Lake without doing a filtration process, it’s also been a high problem area in the past and there’s the 100-year flood type scenario and we’ve actually had more than that. It’s just good to be able to deal with those things appropriately and in a timely manner. In the last 10 years we’ve had some bad floods and the worst was in 2018, there have been issues with flooding and really you only see it when it happens at the time but it has to go somewhere.”

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