The Province has announced $740,000 in funding to go towards protecting commercial and residential properties in the Village from the threat of floods.
In a Feb. 24 press release Stikine MLA Doug Donaldson said the project will include the installation of flood boxes within the Village and raising of both the Riverside Street and Eddy Park Dikes.
“This work will help keep people and properties in Telkwa safe,” said Donaldson. “This funding is important for empowering communities, especially those like Telkwa with little non-residential property tax, to make important improvements to disaster resiliency.”
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Telkwa Mayor Brad Layton said they’ve been asking for this money for a long time.
“We had applied for it and we’ve been approved for funding of $740,000 to work on our dikes. The money we’ve been wanting for our dikes for how many years now? It has been a long time. We will have $740,000 to address the concerns and actions that were brought up in our flood mitigation plan and study that was completed last summer.”
He added the funds are already planned for in the flood mitigation report.
The study, conducted by Golder Associates recommends four main structural measures the Village should take in order to be prepared for a 200-year flood event.
These are: replacing current culverts with flood boxes, diking maintenance, diking upgrades and installation of pumping stations.
Funding is being provided through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund (CEPF), and is part of more than $12 million in provincial emergency preparedness funding supporting flood mitigation projects in communities all across B.C.
Since the British Columbia New Democratic Party formed government in July 2017, communities across B.C. have received more than $40 million through CEPF, which has enhanced the preparedness and resiliency of local governments and First Nations communities for emergencies such as floods or wildfires.
trevor.hewitt@interior-news.com
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