By Shawn Logan
The Eagle
Three mules drowned in the Bow River during the filming of a television series near Morley Aug. 16 despite warnings that rising water from heavy rainfall couldn’t be controlled.
The animals were swept away during the filming of a river crossing near the Chief Goodstoney Rodeo Centre for “Into the West”. The Turner Network Television (TNT) production crew had been warned three times by TransAlta that the Bow River would be rising.
TransAlta’s operations supervisor for hydro, Roger Drury, said Aug. 23 that he received three phone calls from the production crew on the morning of Aug. 16.
“They called the first thing Monday morning and the question was, ‘The river is higher this morning, what’s going on?,’” Drury said. “I warned them to expect flows to continue to go up during the day.”
He said TNT had asked TransAlta if it could lower the Bow River for two days of shooting.
Drury said TNT was told TransAlta could only control the release from its hydro plants up-river from the Seebe electric dam, which is fed from tributaries and hydro plants on the Kananaskis, Spray and Cascade Rivers.
The Seebe operation has no reservoir so “whatever comes in has to go through,” he said.
TransAlta agreed to delay the release of water from the Barrier hydro plant on the Kananaskis River that feeds into the Bow until noon, giving a window from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. when water levels would be lower than normal.
Drury said a filmed crossing Aug. 13 went off without a hitch but heavy rainfall Aug. 15 in the Canmore and Exshaw areas caused levels to rise.
Despite questions from TNT about the rising river, Drury said he told them TransAlta had no control over the increasing flow due to the heavy rains.
“I told them the flows would be higher and coming up through the day,” he said. “We made it clear there was no way we could specifically control that water coming down the Bow.”
He said the river at the Morley site rose about eight inches over the morning and may have surged swiftly, creating a fierce undercurrent.
“It could easily have come up six inches in 10 to 15 minutes,” Drury said. “It’s not what I would call a wall of water, (but) a six-inch flow depth can make quite a difference.”
John Scott, head wrangler for the production, was reluctant to discuss the incident, referring questions to TNT unit publicist Brandee Brooks, who could not be reached.
Scott noted two wagons had crossed the river “just a few minutes before” and despite the accident “no errors were made.”
He said he hadn’t heard about the calls to TransAlta and the forecast of continued rising waters but the safety of the animals was paramount.
“It’s never happened in my 20 years on a movie set,” he said.

• Filed under Archives | Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.