By Dori Modney (@Dori_Modney on Twitter) -- Lethbridge

Multi-Million Dollar Upgrades at Waterton Lakes Come with Temporary Inconvenience

Mar 4, 2016 | 3:04 PM

WATERTON LAKES PARK: What is deemed an unprecedented windfall of a financial investment for Waterton Lakes National Park, will provide short term pain, for long term gain.

A federal investment of $2.6-billion over the next five years will rehabilitate infrastructure within protected sites across Canada. That includes historic sites, National Parks and National Marine Conservation areas, which will share the money to improve their facilities.

The Waterton Lakes National Park portion of the investment comes in at over $107-million.

Parks Communication Officer, Cianna Lyon, says a good chunk of this year’s upgrades will take place between April and November.

“This year, the Akamina Parkway project, all encompassing, is receiving $24-million to repair the road, re-configure the trail heads along with redevelopment of the Cameron Lake day-use area, which sees 70 per cent of our 400,000 annual visitors.”

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For safety reasons, the work will mean the closure of the Cameron Lake day use area this summer to accommodate extensive work to replace all the facilities, including the washrooms, the concession buildings, the docks, just the general landscape by the lake shore, the parking area, trail access and interpretive nodes.

Parking will also be increased at Cameron Lake to reduce environmental damage created by vehicles parked on the edge of roadways. Increased use in the past years has prompted visitors to park in areas where they should not, which creates more damage. The construction will also be done in a manner that reduces storm water into sensitive areas.

The Akamina Parkway will also be resurfaced, and trailheads will be reconfigured, in order to handle the numbers of visitors.

The Cameron Day Use area will likely be closed from April through November. Resurfacing of the parkway will mean closure of the roadway to allow for heavy construction. Since area trails will remain open, the park will alleviate public risk with a shuttle service to the trail heads.

Another area of the park which will see redevelopment is the Red Rock Parkway, which will be closed through May. However, the Parkway will be open to the public on weekends from May 6th to June 17th. Once the $5.1-million in road work is done, hopefully by the end of June, the Parkway will be open seven days a week.

The Blakiston Falls viewing platforms will also be closed until the end of June, to allow for upgrades.

Along with redevelopment of visitor-worn areas, there will also be more than $17-million invested in water and sewer upgrades in the Waterton Town site.

While all the work is underway, Park officials will still try to accommodate visitors who are encouraged to visit the Park’s website. It will have an updated list of the projects that are happening, along with the term impacts. Lyon says they are committed to updating the site as often as they can so visitors can consult for trip planning. She says it will be the greatest resource to know what is available to them.