Now that the so called "S Curve" berm is dead, the Town of High River and the Province are turning their sights on the "Hockey Stick" alignment that runs parallel to Centre Street south of the roundabout.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says after negotiations with the landowner failed it was time to move on.

"The priority is to get this berm in place, there is no option but to do that," he says. "Where we're at right now is doing the final designs on how the hockey stick will work and then it'll move into negotiations with the landowner again."

Snodgrass says the change doesn't mean they're going right back to step one. The "S Curve was at the earliest stages for environmental approvals since the government wasn't willing to proceed until a deal had been signed with the landowner.

"The environmental studies with the hockey stick are much easier, this is the design that Alberta Environment originally proposed to us that this is the one they liked, due to the way the flood way lines go through that property," the mayor says. "With the "S Curve we had to cut right across one of the floodway lines and they (the Alberta Government) gave us their blessing to do that, reluctantly, but to get it going they were willing to do that. With the hockey stick we don't have to cut those lines off, we go with them rather than across them.."

He says the modelling is done and they know what the scope of land acquisition is as they enter a new round of negotiations with the landowner.

 

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