N.S., N.B. governments eye 'alternate route' if storm surge floods the border

There are calls for greater transparency on emergency contingency plans at the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border, in the event of severe flooding within the Chignecto Isthmus.

“It’s so frustrating that we're not further along,” says Megan Mitton, the New Brunswick Green Party MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar, in an interview. “Our government is clearly not ready and we need to see what the plans are, to know there is something in place to keep people safe.”

A strong storm surge could flood the narrow 24-kilometre strip of land connecting the two provinces, cutting access to the Trans-Canada Highway and CN Rail line (both of which are only slightly above sea level).

About $35 billion in goods and services cross the border area each year. Farmland, properties, and other critical infrastructure would also be affected by severe flooding, along with the municipalities of Sackville, N.B. (Tantramar), and Amherst, N.S.

“A storm of a lifetime is now an annual event here,” says Amherst mayor David Kogan, in an interview. “I would like to see more communication between the provinces and the municipal leaders that have concerns, both for New Brunswick and for Nova Scotia.”

Earlier in February, the deputy minister of New Brunswick’s department of transportation and infrastructure acknowledged that meaningful contingency planning only began last year. Rob Taylor said planning was underway, and included work to determine an ‘alternate route’ if the Trans-Canada Highway was underwater.

“We do identify it now as one of our top priorities,” said Taylor, at the Feb. 2 Standing Committee on Public Accounts meeting. Taylor also noted the 10-year timeline for completing any kind of long-term Chignecto Isthmus mitigation project.

“We definitely need a solution in the interim. So I apologize that nothing was done before that. But honestly yes, the past six months we've made a push on it. But unfortunately not much before that.”

The only other paved road on the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border is the rural Tidnish Road, between Tidnish Bridge, N.S. and Baie Verte, N.B.

Neither provincial government would provide any further information about an ‘alternate route’ at the border, nor when any contingency plan would be made public.

The fight about who will foot the bill for a long-term mitigation project is also unresolved. Any project could cost as much as $700 million.

The Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland System Act is in second reading within the Canadian senate, and if passed would declare the area a federal responsibility.

“I do believe the bickering about who is going to pay for it has prolonged things,” says Mitton. “The work still needs to move forward no matter what.”