New flood cash doesn’t mean program continued
An injection of cash into a discontinued program that helped municipalities pay for flood protection projects doesn’t mean the Alberta Community Resiliency Program will be revived, provincial officials tell the News.
The ACRP program provided millions for the City of Medicine Hat to build berms in low-laying communities and upgrade a water intake system at the treatment plant.
However, that provincewide program — launched after the 2013 widespread floods in southern Alberta — was wound up in the 2019-20 provincial budget with “about a dozen” city applications unfunded.
This fall, Alberta Environment announced $53 million in new spending, mostly on 10 projects gleaned for ACRP applications that hadn’t previously received funding.
New money comes from the TIER program, a $750-million fund built up from charges levied on heavy carbon dioxide emitters in the interest of stoking economic activity.
“There is no future funding for the Alberta Community Resiliency Program at this time,” officials with the Ministry of Environment and Parks told the News, stating on-file applications were revisited with a focus on strong projects that could be built soon to jolt the local construction activity.
Regional projects however, could take some time before the full funds are spent and other funding is arranged.
The Horsefly Spillway, near Taber, is a three-phase emergency relief system that would carry excess water safely past the town from the St. Mary’s Irrigation System to the Oldman River.
Phase 1 received ACRP funds in the final round of announcements in February, then that was matched by federal funding in the summer.
The recent announcement, totalling $13 million, involves phases 2 and 3, with administrators in Taber saying it will ensure the project continues. However, those same administrators are now facing questions about securing contributions from municipal partners in a regional drainage strategy, who are cumulatively responsible for one-third of the $47 million total budget.
That partnership includes Cypress County, the County of Forty Mile and City of Medicine Hat, where elected officials have expressed some concern over adding capital expense to already tight budgets in another municipality.
“Discussions with our municipal partners are continuing and are very positive,” Arlos Croft, the top administrator at the M.D. of Taber, told the News recently.