By Ashley Wiebe

Province announces $2.1 million for flood resilience

Apr 24, 2017 | 4:58 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB —The province announced earlier this month that Calgary would benefit from $13 million, set aside for flood-mitigation projects.

Medicine Hat Mayor Ted Clugston was hopeful our city too would be flooded with funding.

But an announcement made by the province on Monday is nowhere near the double digits Calgary saw, with less than $1 million going towards improving the city’s water intake facility.

“In a perfect world, it would’ve been a $6 or $7 million cheque,” Clugston said following the announcement.

HERE'S WHAT TO KNOW

Summer pool hours extended and discounts applied as Big Marble Go Centre upgrades start

15h ago

Medicine Hat company drawing in clients with witty signage

Apr 16, 2024

Medicine Hat College holding event for missing and murdered Indigenous women awareness day

Apr 16, 2024

A total of $2.1 million was announced for flood resilience in southeast Alberta.

“We know that there’s a lot more work that needs to be done in terms of investments and infrastructure in flood infrastructure in Medicine Hat and elsewhere,” Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said.

Of the $2.1 million announced, $774,000 will go towards improvements at the city’s water intake facility, helping to make sure residents have water in the event of another flood.

“This was a bit of a surprise, frankly,” Clugston said. “You never know, the water intake, but still we’d applied for that quite a while ago and that is the great irony of a flood. When you have too much water, your actual potable water supply is in jeopardy.”

Last year, the city applied for nearly $7 million in funding to help cover some of the remaining costs for flood mitigation projects.

To date, $33 million has been spent by city staff to better protect residents in the future.

The province has already paid out about $26 million, an addition $1 million has come from the federal government.

But Clugston didn’t hesitate in telling the minister he’s still hoping for an addition ‘$5 or 6 million’.

“Obviously we all know the financial position that the province is in and, you know, we’ve got this far,” Clugston added.

“Certainly Medicine Hat has a few projects in the queue and they’ve been deferred but certainly not rejected,” Phillips said. “They’ve been accepted as applications, but deferred in terms of their funding until funding becomes available.”

In the meantime, work will continue on the berms.

Clugston said work in Riverside is nearly done. A last piece along Industrial Avenue will need to be finished. Once that’s complete, crews will move out towards Medalta.

“Spring means fear and anxiety of the river, right? And when we’re finished our mitigation projects, I’d like to say we can now celebrate the river,” Clugston said.