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
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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
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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
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“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!”
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