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SASKATOONEXPRESS - June 16-22, 2014 - Page 1
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3330 8th St. E. • 705 22nd St. W. • 1204 Central Ave. • 802 Circle Dr. E. • 519 Nelson Road
Volume 11, Issue 23, Week of June 16, 2014
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Hyde Park
(Photo by Steve Gibb/GibbArt.com)
128-acre wetland located in Rosewood
Tammy Robert Saskatoon Express
project, it’s obvious that Rogers played an integral role from Day One. ot everyone can say that they “Way back in 2000, the SWF forwardhave seen their dream come true. ed me a message saying that the City of Saskatoon resident Bob Rogers is Saskatoon was developing a southeast one of the lucky ones. sector storm-water management plan,” The retired Saskatoon science teacher he said. “It was planned for just off Boyis about to attend the ribbon cutting to chuk Drive, where there was a line of officially open Hyde Park wetland area, small prairie marshes with one big marsh a 128-acre outdoor parks and education in the centre. Our understanding of the destination located in Saskatoon’s Rose- engineering plan at that time was that the wood community. developers were coordinating with the “Outdoor science was my big thing. City to deepen some of those marshes And I’m also a hunter, fisherman and to turn them into storm-water capture conservationist,” said Rogers. “I joined basins.” the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation back in That was all well and fine, said Rogers, 1997, and immediately got really inbecause storm-water capture basins obvivolved in the habitat projects.” ously save local residents and their homes Today, Rogers remains the long-runfrom being flooded in a rainstorm. Howning habitat chairperson for the Saskatoon ever, storm-water basins do little more Wildlife Federation (SWF) organization. than that, lying relatively useless when While he humbly makes reference to all they’re not soaking up excess rainwater. the people and stakeholders who have “Storm-water basins are basically just a been part of developing the Hyde Park big bathtub,” said Rogers. “They have no
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ecological or wildlife value whatsoever.” With that in mind, Rogers and members of the local chapter of Ducks Unlimited drove out to the area — which would eventually become Saskatoon’s Rosewood neighbourhood — to have a look at the land. Their focus was a 65acre body of water, the biggest in the line of marshes on the roughly 200 acres in question. “We saw that big marsh was a garbage dump,” said Rogers. “It was full of junk, fridges, tires, construction waste that people had illegally dumped. We looked through that and said, ‘What if it could be restored? It could function as a stormwater basin in a natural setting.’ ” Rogers and his colleagues knew that Saskatoon could do better than what they had planned for the area — that the existing prairie marshes could both be preserved as a natural wetland resource and serve an invaluable service to surrounding homeowners in the event of flooding.
“Ducks Unlimited and I wrote and petitioned the City to speak at city council to the issue. We did enough lobbying that the City put it to a vote and the original plan was unanimously deferred. Saskatoon city council recognized the area could be restored to a natural prairie marsh in the city. It would be a huge educational tool for schools to teach kids prairie ecology.” In 2002, after unanimously voting to support the new plan, the City hired a firm out of Edmonton that had experience in prairie engineering projects. The Saskatoon Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited and the Rosewood Community Association were identified as stakeholders. For the next 12 years they dutifully sat through planning and development meetings as the process of designing and restoring the wetlands took place. The SWF donated $100,000 to the project, by way of $10,000 per year over 10 years. (Continued on page 9)