No backup plan for flood-prone area, says top official

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Under questioning at a legislative committee, a senior provincial government official has admitted there’s no backup plan in case a big flood swamps the Trans-Canada highway and other key infrastructure in the low-lying area of southeastern New Brunswick.

The vulnerable strip of land near Sackville, known as the Chignecto Isthmus, has been protected by farmers’ dykes for close to four centuries. But for more than a decade, experts have been sounding the alarm that if a big storm were to hit the area when tides are at their highest – the so-called spring or king tides that occur twice a month – there could be widespread flooding.

The fear is that worsening storms and rising sea levels – both connected to climate change and a warming planet – poses a serious threat.

Rob Taylor, the deputy minister of transportation and infrastructure, told the public accounts committee on Friday that a contingency plan for an alternate route during a worst-case scenario is “currently being looked at,” pointing out that on the Nova Scotia side, his counterparts are busily assessing a secondary road that New Brunswick could possibly tie into.

About $35 billion of trade passes on the Trans-Canada and the busy CN Rail line that crosses the isthmus every year.

“I apologize it wasn’t prioritized more, having a contingency plan and an alternate route,” Taylor said. “We do identify it now as one of our top priorities. Because with a 10-year timeframe to turn something around, we definitely need an interim solution.”

Taylor promised to meet privately with Megan Mitton, the Green MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar who’d asked the questions, to give her a more detailed timetable of the department’s plans. He said planning and designing the changes would take about five years and construction another five years.

“I felt a knot in my gut when I heard that,” she said Monday in an interview. “I felt quite shocked. Because this has been a problem so long, there’s really no excuse for there not to be something in place. I feel like it shows that this hasn’t been taken seriously or made a priority by government after government.”

An engineering report two years ago presented three options for shoring up the dykes and protecting infrastructure in the corridor, where about 5,000 people live, but both Ottawa and the provinces are still arguing over who will pay.

The feds have committed to pay half of the estimated $650-million price tag to protect the Chignecto Isthmus.

I felt a knot in my gut when I heard that.

Megan Mitton

Meanwhile, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia believe it’s Ottawa’s responsibility to pay the entire bill. The Nova Scotia government has asked the Court of Appeal in the Bluenose province to determine if the feds have exclusive jurisdiction to maintain the dykes and other structures in place protecting the land bridge. That case is supposed to be heard this month.

The fear is that climate change and rising sea levels won’t wait for the needed repairs.

“I have been after minister after minister asking for updates and advocating for them to do something,” Mitton said. “Where is Premier (Blaine) Higgs and where is Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau on this? And when you look back, where was Premier Brian Gallant? It’s just frustrating at this point, like we’re still at the beginning.”

Taylor said New Brunswick had made an application to Ottawa to fund the project and expects to hear back on it this spring. Until then, he said his officials continue to meet on the issue monthly, while on the Nova Scotia side, senior officials meet on it weekly.

Mitton is calling for more public consultation, including with local municipal officials and farmers.

“There’s so much at stake, and I know the focus is on the Trans-Canada, but there’s also a communications network, farmers’ fields, and people’s businesses and lives that are at stake. All the governments at all different levels should be worried.”