Sussex 'won't survive' without a $38M flood mitigation project. But who's going to pay?

A week after devastating flooding once again forced evacuations, caused millions in damage, and activated the highest level of the town's community disaster plan,it's clear the future of Sussex isat stake, according toScott Hatcher,the town's chief administrative officer

"Without the solution, without the funding, without the mitigation plan we're going to die a slow and painful death over the next couple of decades," Hatcher said.

Attracting new businesses and people, he said, won't happen "with this cloud hanging over our head. If we don't change that, we're simply not going to survive."

After historic flooding in 2014, 2019, 2020, 2022, and now 2024, it's clear climate change "is real, it's here and unfortunately our residents are living it."

WATCH | 'If we don't change that, we're simply not going to survive'

After another historic flood, Sussex renews plea for federal help

7 months ago

Duration 2:54

Towns survival depends on ambitious master plan for flood mitigation.

Sussex residents aren't the only ones living it. So are the people of Tantramar and the Acadian Peninsula and across Canada, in municipalities from Merritt,B.C. to Calgaryto Windsor, Ont.,to St. John's.

But Sussex believes it knows how to stop the slowly unfolding disaster. The town'sambitious flood mitigation master plan includes a flood flow diversion channel at the town's eastern limits, another diversion channel on Parsons Brook, and stormwater infrastructure upgrades in the northwest and northeast of the town.

The first project in the plan a $1.2-million berm behind Gateway Mall was completed in 2019.

Buying some properties and restoring them to a floodplain will also be part of the solution. Up to 60 homes in a marshy area between Post Road and the back property lines of Bryant Drive may have to be purchased, Hatcher said.

"We have a solution, we've modelled it. We know it will work, and more importantly, it's going to work every time we need it," Hatcher said.

But with a $38 million dollar price tag, that solution doesn't come cheap and if the past few years have been any indication, it's likely the next flood will arrive before the money does.

Online form 'glitch' causes delay

Like the creek that runs through the town,applying for flood mitigation funding in Sussex hasn't always run smoothly.It's been a five-phase, seven-year process just to to come up with the current master plan.

The first flood study was published in 2016. In 2019, a joint task force on flooding was struck between Sussex andnearby Sussex Corner (the two communities have since amalgamated). Sussex engaged the engineering firm Gemtech to assist with the assessment and mapping process.

Then COVID hit, tying up limited resources in the rural community and slowing down progress on the flooding file.

By 2022, the town managed to identify a federal funding stream under the Disaster Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Fundand was ready for the first application round in June 2022, Hatcher said.

But maddeningly that application was derailed bya "technical glitch." When town officials tried to submit the online form through the federal portal, he said, the "submit" button wouldn't work.

"We were seeking help from the IT people in Ottawa," Hatcher said. "We were in the process of working it out." But as they worked to address the glitch, the window to submit the application ended. Sussex was told to wait for the next intake in 2023.

That "frustrating" online form snafu, said Hatcher, amounted to another year lost.

The application was submitted in July 2023. It's been under review by Infrastructure Canada ever since.

More than $1 billion in federal funding is available in the current intake of applications for the mitigation and adaptation fund.

But it's unclear when Sussex which is looking for $15 millionfrom the federal government will get an answer.

"We haven't had any outreach from the department who has our application, or from any federal ministers who can advance the file," Hatcher said.

The Infrastructure Canada website says only that the department "will communicate the results in writing as they become available."

'Please,God, do it quick'

Conservative Fundy Royal MP Rob Moore met with Sussex Mayor Marc Thorne and town officials on Saturday and again on Monday, after the floodwaters receded. Moore said he's raised Sussex's concerns with Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, but he's limited in what he can do as an opposition MP.

"At the end of the day, the decision on whether to fund a project or not rests with the government of the day," he said. "It's not up to a local member of Parliament," he said.

Cheryl Ward, who lives on flood-prone Stewart Avenue, saidshe understands how government works but finds itfrustrating to seepoliticsimpedingurgently neededsolutions.

Last Thursday during the flood, "the river was right here," Ward saidas she gestured toward a dumpsterfor homeowners'flood debris in the middle of the street."You could have put a boat in it and floated along."

"While we're waiting for them to decide what's going to happen?"

What will happen to Sussex, specifically, is hard tosay with so many major climate change projects competingfor federal dollars. Strengthening and raisingtheChignecto Isthmus, for example,is another imminently needed project. Itisexpected to take 10 years and cost $600 million once work gets underway.

In the meantime, Ward hasspenttens of thousands of dollars of her own money onflood-proofing her home: five sump pumps, raising thehot water tank and electrical system, flipping her furnace horizontally, installing shelving and removable plastic wall panels.

"It would be nice to know that you've got the federal government, provincial government, municipal government all behind you to get it fixed, she said.

Anything, she said, would be better than nothing. "Please God, do it quick."