How green is our valley? Numerous projects threaten Edmonton's jewel

A relentless pounding beats a rhythm as I type this blog post. Ten blocks from my century-old home on the edge of Edmonton's North Saskatchewan River valley construction workers prepare to ford the river, building a new Walterdale Bridge. Bright sunlight, blue sky, a few remaining golden leaves, and bird sounds distract me just enough to keep me from comparing the piledriving boom boom boom to the the Doom, Doom, drumbeats of J.R.R. Tolkein, "the end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep..."

On Thursday night I helped to coordinate a civic election forum

that brought together council candidates from both sides of the river and concerned citizens who are growing increasingly alarmed at the large number of projects and plans for Edmonton's core river valley. (See what candidates had to say here.)

My involvement came out of my exasperation after the city rushed through a public hearing on a 500+ page report into the impact of the Valley Line LRT project on the river valley environment. The assessment, required by law, wasn't completed until three years after the route was already finalized. The report was released just days before the hearing date. Despite the short notice over a dozen people attend the hearing to discuss their concerns: the loss of a peaceful and pristine part of our central river valley, the loss of the Cloverdale footbridge, to be replaced years later by an inferior pedestrian and bike crossing, concern for the impact on plant and wildlife habitat including the closure of key river valley wildlife corridors.

I spent several afternoons down on the footbridge talking to hundreds of users and the passion residents from all over the city – and tourists! – have for this area is clear. Scroll through the remarks and photos on the Save Edmonton's Downtown Footbridge page, and take a look at the comments on the petition and you'll get a sense of how people feel about this part of the core river valley.

Concern about the clearcutting of trees along the south bank to accommodate the Valley Line bridge have caused some to look west to the Walterdale bridge construction project currently underway to see what is in store for this area. It is not a pretty comparison. The ravaged south slope of the river is a startling reminder of the scars construction leaves on the land.

At a public meeting to discuss the LRT's river valley crossing, a number of people mentioned other projects planned or proposed in the downtown river valley, and that led to the "A River Runs Through It: Growth Pressures and River Valley Preservation" election forum to ask those running for office in Edmonton's core for their thoughts on how to mitigate the cumulative impact of upwards of 20 projects, big and small, on the area.

A River Runs Through It - Ward 6 and 8 candidates

Although Edmonton's' "Ribbon of Green" river valley park system is almost 50 km in length and is 22 times larger than New York's Central park, the core area flanking our downtown core is a much shorter slice of only five kilometres of winding river valley, dividing the city's historic valley neighourhoods of McKay Avenue, Strathcona (including Skunk Hollow), Mill Creek (including Centretown), Cloverdale, Rossdale, and Riverdale.

Edmonton's River Valley overlooking the communities of Cloverdale, Centretown,  Mill Creek and Rossdale.

Walterdale industry, early 1900s.

This stretch of the river also has contained some of the most industrialized lands in the city. The valley has housed sawmills, sewage lagoons, gravel pits, brickyards, garbage dumps, breweries, mills, tanneries, meat packing plants, dairies, the city's main power plant - housing and industry - for over 100 years.

Major transportation road and railways bisected the valley.

Traffic circle at Walterdale Bridge

A 1969 freeway plan. 

In the 1970s the James McDonald bridge brought a freeway-like roadway that cut both Cloverdale and Rossdale in half.

Floods in the early 20th century ended the industrial era and left behind a reduced housing stock. An early vision of a river valley parkland sparked eager expropriation in the 1930s through to the 1980s which took care of more housing, with land set aside for "parkland" but often left to deteriorate into forlorn, abandoned lots overtaken by weeds and the ubiquitous and invasive caragana bush.

Flood of 1915, Rossdale

Today, on both banks of the river in downtown Edmonton, the Ribbon of Green experience is marred by traffic noise, encroachment by private property or city owned property, adjacent roadsides, washed out and eroded trails, and wild, inaccessible scrub, often littered with garbage and the camp remnants of the homeless.

Yet, within this small, 5 km stretch represents a vast potential of vacant and natural land that is dear to the hearts of residents, downtown workers, recreational users and the commuters who cycle and walk through the river valley.

Passionate #yegdtfootbridge users 

More than a dozen projects proposed or planned for the downtown river valley. Interactive Map: click here

Some of the projects planned and proposed are meant to enhance river valley access. Others call for more housing and businesses, protection, or transportation corridors through the valley. They run the gamut from the Valley Line LRT bridge, flood mitigation dykes, docks, trails, canals, a beach, fountains, a fire station, First Nations ceremonial fire sites, a museum, the proposed Shaw Conference Centre expansion, the power plant revitalization project... it's an extensive list and a large footprint of impact when taken altogether.

I heard a lot of concern at Thursday's forum about the cummulative impact of this development. I also heard a real lack of faith that both elected officials and the administration will ensure the pressures of growth and plans for development are resolved in such a way as to preserve and protect the river and its valley.

Some of our Ward 6 and Ward 8 candidates are opposed to development altogether. Some of the candidates seem more willing to entertain development as long as it has minimal negative impact.

But few people on Thursday talked about what seems glaringly obvious to me. We treat every part of the river valley as if it's exactly the same - areas that have been disturbed and industrialized are treated the same as areas that are relatively pristine.

Mill Creek/North Saskatchewan, early 1900s

Mill Creek/North Saskatchewan outfall 2013

And there are indeed some parts of our downtown river valley that are worth preserving as the intact, quiet, peaceful and pristine areas that they are. There are pockets of the valley that have seen very little impact from the hand of man. William Bird's failed grist mill site at the juncture of Mill Creek and the North Saskatchewan, in Henrietta Muir Edwards Park just east of Rafter's Landing today, was by and large left alone even as industry and farms and homes sprouted up around the area. You can see how natural and treed the outfall is in mid-century photos before the creek was rerouted with the construction of the James McDonald Bridge - now it comes out of a cement tube halfway up the valley below Centretown.

The natural area left behind is a pocket of what the Valley Line environmental assessment refers to as the only "natural plant community" in the area. Indigenous trees and ground cover including the rare smooth sweet cicely plant, categorized as an "S2" in Alberta which means only 6-20 populations occur in the whole province. The Mill Creek channel area also shelters Harriot's sagewort, spotted coralroot, purple peavine, and turned sedge and it is an area important enough to warrant the attention of Sustainable Resource Development, which, along with the city has committed to evaluating a return of Mill Creek to its original channel. This area is unique in the downtown core river valley. It will be destroyed by the construction of the Valley Line LRT.

Other projects, particularly the West Rossdale development with its call for increased housing density, the power plant rejuvenation, and the more fanciful canal and funicular ideas, are also river valley developments, but they are in areas that have seen decades of disruption.

Rossdale Regeneration project

Louise McKinney Park is a good example of how to take an area ravaged by a man-made landslide along with decades of misuse, and maltreatment including using the site as a refuse dump, and turning it into a lovely, manicured, and increasingly well-used park.

Garbage dump, 1931, REW/Edmonton Archives

Louise McKinney Park, built on the site of an old garbage dump and man-made landslide. 

Before we proceed any further with any more projects in the downtown river valley, we need to do an inventory of the entire stretch of land from the High Level to the Dawson Bridge to establish the relative impact of development and distress to date. We need to establish which areas are the most worth preserving exactly as they are, which areas can accommodate even the simplest of interventions - boat docks and cycling and walking trails, and which areas will actually be enhanced by more significant development.

Without this assessment we will blunder through a dozen or more projects with piecemeal environmental impact assessments that do not take into account the cumulative impact of development in our river valley core. A thousand blue sky sunny days in our valley will mean nothing if the remaining natural lands are turned into a blight, with the sound of boom, doom, echoing in our ears as we remember what we once had and survey what we have lost.