By Dan Singleton
MVP Staff
Mountain View County councillors have instructed administration to move forward with an application for provincial flood mitigation funding.
During the latest council meeting, councillors identified two principal areas where the funds could be used: for the construction of a flood prevention berm on the Red Deer River upstream of Sundre and for a bridge over the Little Red Deer River at Water Valley.
In a letter to the county, Martin Foy, regional director with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development said the government is seeking applications from municipalities impacted by flood and planning to undertake prevention work.
“Eight priority projects were identified for immediate support (none in MVC). However, the government is also soliciting additional priorities from all municipalities who declared a state of local emergency,” said Foy.
Approved projects must be assessed as critical to protect existing municipal infrastructure or residential communities from ongoing and imminent erosion to receive the program's grant funding, he said.
“ESRD will facilitate a quick review of these ‘expressions of interest' and on a first-come, first-served basis, provide you with approval to proceed with grant application development on candidate projects,” he said.
In June overland flooding of the Red Deer River upstream of Sundre damaged private and public property.
A temporary bridge has been in place at the Water Valley Little Red Deer River crossing since the permanent bridge was destroyed in floods in 2005.
MVC has been working with the Town of Sundre and others on trying to get provincial funding for flood mitigation work on the Red Deer River upstream and downstream of Sundre since 2005.
