Glenmore Dam to get $82M in upgrades from City of Calgary

The city has decided to spend $82 million to upgrade the Glenmore Dam.

The improvements are part of ongoing maintenance but the changes will also increase the storage capacity of the reservoir.

The project includes removing water and gas lines from the top of the dam and automating and adding higher gates to the spillways, which will increase the capacity of the reservoir.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says the work will be done regardless of which flood mitigation projects the province decides to do on the Elbow River.

• Glenmore Dam ready for future floods, says city

The work on the Glenmore Dam is work that largely needs to be done anyway and would provide some resiliency as well. That's my understanding, he said.

That things like replacement of the bridge deck and so on need to happen nonetheless, but if we're doing it, we may as well do it in a way that increases the storage capacity of the dam.

During last year's flood, the reservoir behind the Glenmore Dam was so high that water flowed over the top of the structure, causing major damage to communities downstream.

Replacing the existing deteriorated wooden stop logs with steel gates will reduce flood damage downstream while allowing the Glenmore Reservoir to hold twice as much water in the winter.

If an automated gate system had been in place during the 2005 flood a once-in-30-year event there would have been no damage downstreamalong the Elbow River, the water department said.

The upgrades will be done over the next three years.

The city is applying to have the province pay $10 million with the rest coming out of its capital budget.