Dike risk at centre of Advocate Harbour public meeting

Sea level rise is something that should be of particular concern to residents around Advocate Harbour.

After all, they’ve seen the power of the Bay of Fundy. In December 2008 a fierce winter storm damaged the seawall that protects the community. While it was later fixed, a predicted rise in sea levels around the globe presents the next challenge to the community sandwiched between the sea and the cliffs of Cape Chignecto.

“By 2100 the sea level is expected to be over the dike in Advocate,” Cumberland County’s EMO co-ordinator Mike Johnson said. “It’s not a question of it’s going to happen because it’s going to happen and we need to take steps now to prepare.”

While it could be seven or eight decades before the dikes are compromised, Johnson said there’s always the risk of a storm damaging the infrastructure before then.

The Municipality of Cumberland is organizing a public meeting at the Advocate fire hall on Jan. 26 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss a study that will be done of the dikes, why it’s being done and how residents can participate.

The federal government recently approved funding to study the dikes and what the best options are moving forward. He said the study will look at whether enhancing the dike by increasing its height is the best plan or should the community look at moving vulnerable pieces of infrastructure such as the school, the post office and the convenience store.

“We need to look at things like making the dikes higher, if that’s even possible, or moving those pieces of the community that are at risk,” Johnson said.

Johnson said it’s a situation similar to what’s being faced between Amherst and Sackville, N.B., where the mayors of both towns have joined with Cumberland County Warden Allison Gillis and Cumberland-colchester MP Bill Casey to lobby federal and provincial officials to fund a study on the dikes along the Tantramar Marsh.

Casey said an estimated $50-million in trade goes through the Isthmus of Chignecto every day and the dikes protect the CN rail line, the Trans-canada Highway connecting New Brunswick to Nova Scotia and valuable farmland and commercial properties.