"A southwestern Ontario mayor says the provincial and federal governments need to follow in the footsteps of the United States and initiate a coastal resilience study along the thousands of kilometers of Great Lakes shoreline in Canada.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is creating a master plan across eight states that border the Great Lakes that will be used to predict future shoreline conditions and prioritize the specific coastal resiliency investments needed for cities and towns along the 8,000 km shoreline.
Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara, who has serves as the Canadian vice-chairman of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative's Mayors Commission on Coastal Resilience, said a similar approach is needed on the Canadian side of the water.
'There needs to be some continuity because we're talking 4,000 kilometres of shoreline,' said McNamara.
Studies show high cost of shoreline protections
Tecumseh and other municipalities such as Lakeshore and Chatham-Kent have completed studies detailing the expensive efforts needed to protect people who have property along an eroding shoreline that's being pounded by destructive storms.
'We live in an area where one-in-100-year storms are now becoming a common theme,' he said.
Those storms have led to millions of dollars in damage to homeowners' basements and municipal infrastructure.
McNamara said that his council has approved close to $100 million on completed and planned projects in recent years to build up flooding and erosion protections.
'For me, the attention needs to be put on the the infrastructure required to mitigate that.'
He describes the $2-billion national climate change adaptation plan announced by the federal government this year 'a good down-payment' toward a problem that upper levels of government don't seem to have a clear grasp of.
'I think at the 40,000-foot level, they do. But on the ground level, not so much.'
Willing partners at provincial, federal level
McNamara took his push for coastal resiliency strategy to the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual meeting in London and asked Ontario's Minster of Environment, Conservation and Parks David Piccini to make it a priority.
'I said yes, Ontario's a willing partner,' said Piccini, while referring to a letter signed by Ontario's Big City Mayors earlier this summer calling for 'a new round of flexible federal-provincial infrastructure funding.'
'My federal counterpart has said adaptation and resiliency is a key tenant in any future infrastructure funding. I think everyone is saying the right thing,' he said.
United States putting billions of dollars toward coastal resiliency
Earlier this year, the United States federal government announced a $2.6-billion plan targeting Great Lakes and coastal resilience through the Inflation Reduction Act.
The plan includes half a billion dollars for a grant program made available to regional partners along the Great Lakes.
'Our fresh coasts are critical to our economy, our environment, and our way of life in Wisconsin,' said Senator Tammy Baldwin in a press release announcing the plan.
'We need to do everything we can to protect them for generations to come.'
McNamara said that he's asked Brigadier General Kimberly Peeples, the person leading Army Corps study, to share lessons found in their study with Canadian counterparts.
'I think that that's a great opportunity and for us to maybe piggyback on some of that study that they're doing,' said McNamara.
He believes there needs to be a working group or task force assembled in Canada around Great Lakes resiliency to move forward with a project on this side of the border.
'But it's going to take obviously the federal provincial government both coming to the table and initiating somewhat of a programs with a large Consulting Group so that there's a uniform approach to dealing with what we're dealing with.'"
Original article by CBC journalists, which we have quoted in its entirety here.
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