Rimbey Northeast Outlet Ditch Upgrade

Tagish Engineering was commissioned to design, tender and inspect the re-construction of the NE Lagoon Outlet Ditch. The Outlet Ditch is located near several oil/gas installations which involved obtaining crossing agreements for twenty-two (22) pipeline and utility crossings.

Many sections of the Outlet Ditch had little or no gradient, areas over grown with vegetation, blockages caused by pipeline construction activity, beavers and farm animals.  The design team determined that the Outlet Ditch design capacity must include the discharge effluent from the NE Lagoon and an adjacent contributing area of over 4,100 hectares.  To accommodate the combined flows, the ditch capacity was improved by increasing the gradient, widening the ditch bottom and flatten out the side slopes.

This project was a multi-disciplinary endeavor and the Tagish team was responsible for all steps of the process from conceptual design through to post construction engineering.

The major construction challenge was the entire ditch had to be constructed while still allowing the normal storm water flow to continue. The project also involved the replacement of multiple farm/animal crossings complete with the replacement of larger corrugated metal pipes (CSP) and placement of rip-rap to reduce erosion. The project also included the removal and replacement of over 8,000 lin. meter of livestock fencing.