High River nets $ 30M in flood relief
Alberta’s new municipal affairs minister committed Monday $ 30 million for flood mitigation projects in High River and promised to “quickly” resolve hundreds of disaster relief claims.
“Our government is moving forward with a flood mitigation strategy to help safeguard families and businesses in High River from future floods,” said Danielle Larivee, the MLA from Lesser Slave Lake.
Larivee was appointed municipal affairs minister in late October and is the sixth MLA to hold the post since the 2013 flood swept through southern Alberta and caused $ 6 billion in damages.
The $ 30 million is allocated toward the rehabilitation of Lineham Bridge and the design and construction of two berms: one on 5th Street and another along the southwest edge of the town.
The money comes on top of previous flood infrastructure commitments of more than $ 100 million since 2013.
“This is a huge day for High River,” said Mayor Craig Snodgrass.
“Until that southwest berm goes in, High River is still at risk,” said Snodgrass. “I was worried that this was going to get delayed and delayed.”
Another $ 2 million is allocated for flood modelling to support a working group with representatives from the province, Town of High River and the MD of Foothills, to assess upstream and downstream impacts of flood mitigation infrastructure.
An earlier study by Dutch consultant firm Deltares recommended the province make room for the river and abandon an earlier plan to build a $ 250- million, seven- kilometre canal to divert water from the Highwood River and into the Little Bow to protect the town.
That report, commissioned by the former PC government, found the average annual loss from flooding would be less than $ 1 million, which could justify spending $ 25 million to $ 40 million on mitigation measures.
“Now that we have all the information, we are taking action,” Larivee said.
Further, changes to the province’s disaster relief program — the source of much frustration among flood victims whose homes and businesses were damaged — will soon resolve 80 per cent of outstanding cases, she said.
Larivee said the province would forgive nearly 550 DRP overpayments of $ 5,000 or less previously issued to flood victims, some ranging as low as $ 100, but totalling roughly $ 1.5 million.
“It has been budgeted already,” she told reporters. “The cost to recover them is actually greater than it would be to forgive those.”
Another 75 cases where overpayments were more than $ 5,000 will be handled on a case- by- case basis. And 450 files deemed inactive would be closed.
The province received 10,609 DRP claims following the 2013 flood, including 4,599 in High River.
New figures show the province has paid out 90 per cent of those claims totalling just over $ 137.4 million. That includes more than $ 65 million paid out in High River.
Coun. Bruce Masterman, who sits on the town’s DRP advocacy committee, said forgiving the overpayments would help ease minds of people who already endured “the nightmare” of the program.
“( But) why stop at $ 5,000?” Masterman said. “There’s really none that are over $ 10,000 that we know about, so let’s just go to $ 10,000 and … we can close the book on that part of it. Then we can start dealing with closing the rest of the files in an expeditious way.”
PC environment critic Rick Fraser said he was pleased to see the government proceed on building the southwest berm, but was surprised there was no announcement about the Centre Street bridge.
“The debris getting caught under the bridge really complicates things because that’s when the water backs up and starts to overflow into the downtown,” said the MLA for Calgary- South East. “The longer we wait on that the more potential there is for risk to the downtown core. It needs to be raised in one form or another.”