Cash for lake outlets coming
Feds, Manitoba to announce funding for lake outlets
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2018 (2811 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA — The federal government has heeded Premier Brian Pallister’s call to construct a pair of outlet channels to prevent flooding around Lake Manitoba, the Free Press has learned.
In a deal to be revealed today, the federal government will contribute about $250 million, and the province will pay $290 million, to bolster Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin flood measures. The cost of the project is $540 million.
Pallister will join Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr at the announcement today in St. Laurent, 90 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
In 2011, a devastating flood displaced several communities, swamped farmland, ruined cottages and businesses and cost governments hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation payments. A flood in 2014 added to demands for channels to link the two lakes and improve Lake St. Martin’s connection with Lake Winnipeg.
Currently, the Dauphin and Fairford rivers connect all three lakes, but they don’t have the capacity to handle a large amount of floodwater. The two new outlets will run separately from those rivers.
The project will almost triple the capacity of the existing Lake St. Martin outlet to 11,500 cubic feet per second from 4,000 cf/s. The Lake Manitoba outlet channel will be new and will be able to handle 7,500 cf/s.
Carr will attend the announcement on behalf of federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeeet Sohi.
The federal funding will mark the first time Ottawa dips into the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, which the Liberals launched in May to build or improve infrastructure that protects from floods, fires and storms. Today’s announcement will account for one-eighth of the $2-billion national fund.
Ottawa will reimburse Manitoba when it receives a request, though provinces and municipalities tend to leave claims for promised infrastructure funding until those projects are completed.
In April, Pallister wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking Ottawa to designate the outlet as an emergency construction project and speed up an environmental review. A month later, the federal assessment agency completed its probe, avoiding a full-blown review that would have delayed construction by months.
The project has been in the works for years, with an access road planned and consultations completed with Indigenous communities.
Residents have largely asked for the flood-prevention project to be built as soon as possible, but others have questioned the proposed route for the Lake Manitoba outlet, out of concern their land would be expropriated.
dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
