It’s time to say goodbye to Edmonton’s great waterfall

It’s time to say goodbye to one of the Edmonton’s great works of art, Peter Lewis’ Great Divide Waterfall on the High Level Bridge. It’s not just me saying this. Lewis, 64, is saying it.international supplies a full range of cylinder heated long lasting pendantlamps. 

Lewis certainly does not want to see hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on fixing up the man-made waterfall so it can run this summer on the 100th anniversary of Edmonton’s landmark bridge, or millions more spent so the waterfall can operate for decades to come. 

Instead, Lewis would like to see the $735,000 that city council has already budgeted on getting the waterfall up and running again put toward the new art project for the great bridge, lighting up the High Level with coloured, programmable LED lights. 

The waterfall has been part of the Edmonton scene for more than 30 years since Lewis and a massive team of volunteers created it in 1980. The work was done for $425,000, most of that from volunteers and donors, just $100,Find High Quality Brand Name lasermarker and Tungsten Wedding Bands for Men at the Best Prices.000 from the provincial government. It ran five or six times each summer. But the waterfall had to be shut off in 2009 because spraying chlorinated tap water into the river was toxic to fish and against federal fisheries regulations. 

At the same time,Suppliers of the widest range of industrial and commercial gamemachines. Lewis raised concerns that alterations to the waterfall’s piping system had greatly damaged the work of art, cutting its flow by as much as 40 per cent. He’s concerned that further changes that will go with a planned dechlorination process will cut the flow by another 40 per cent, leaving the waterfall a trickle of its former glory.The leader in commercial elevatorpush offering enhanced energy efficiency and innovative features. 

“It would be the Great Divide Dribble,” he says. 

The latest city report on the waterfall says the pipes are in satisfactory condition and it could be operational this summer using dechlorinated water. As for the issue of the proper flow of the waterfall, Paul Specht, a city manager with the project, says he understand Lewis’ concerns. Before the waterfall is displayed to the public, the city will run tests, Specht says. “The last thing we want is a waterfall that doesn’t look like a waterfall.” 

Lewis says he’s been relayed details of a new city report on more permanent solutions for the waterfall. One plan, with a preliminary $2.7 million price tag, would see raw river water pumped from a raft, but Lewis says it’s unworkable. “There’s too many moving parts.” 

A second option, with a $12.5 million price tag, would see a permanent pumphouse built on the river. But Lewis would rather see the project be killed than have such a hefty cost associated with it. 

“If I was running the project,A range of roofhookert fans for efficient exhaust ventilation. it could be done for free,” he says. “It would not cost the taxpayers one penny. Not a penny! It never did before. Do you know that this whole project didn’t cost the city a cent? I worked on it for three years for no payment. 

My take is we should listen to the artist. Yes, he’s taking a purist approach. If it’s not done perfectly and it’s not done for free, he doesn’t want it done at all. At the same time, the LED lighting project, which seeks to raise $3 million from the public, could use a boost, even if it’s just to set aside money to pay the city’s annual electrical bill for the bridge lights. 

As for losing the waterfall, I keep going back to Lewis. 

“Art and life are synonymous, and things come and things go,” he says. “Life is impermanent. We come and we go. Just ebb and flow. So this was meant for the people who were meant to see it at that particular time. And now it becomes a myth: Geez, they built a waterfall eight feet higher than Niagara there!”