Three years after a catastrophic flood struck Abbotsford, repairs to Highway 11 in the region are almost complete.
The city of Abbotsford was underwater after extreme rain nearly overwhelmed the region’s pump station in 2021 — flooding some of the province’s most productive farmlands.
The province says, in order to finish the repairs, there will be single-lane closures between Valley Road and Batemen Road for two weeks.
“We have over 300 sites the city was responsible for, and the vast majority of those are done,” Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens said.
He says Abbotsford had to prioritise main connections in their repairs, but in the long term, the city is still advocating for a flood mitigation plan worth $1.6 billion.
The funding would be used for flood mitigation and repairing all the infrastructure and dykes. This comes as the climate crisis increases the risk of extreme weather events.
“By being ahead of that we’re actually going to be it’s a prudent thing to do,” he said.
He says the city is working with the Sumas First Nations and BC’s senior levels of government for that funding.
“We’re also working on a Trans Boundary initiative with our friends south of the border in Whatcom County.”
Siemens says the close to $40 million in emergency funding was a good start in the repairs, but Abbotsford’s long term flood mitigation plan requires more.
“Sumas Prarie is some of the most profitable and productive farmland in the country,” he said.
“We need long-term sustainability.”
He says it’s worth noting that the province has invested $ 7.6 million in resiliency funding.
“That was first with the urgent works, but the other does require federal funding,” he said.
“You know this isn’t just about food security, and protecting our farmers. This is also about the transportation corridor.”
He says the Trans-Canada Highway is the main conduit for everything coming in from the Port of Vancouver, and the government is doing a port expansion.
Siemens says with the expansion the funds would be important to protecting the Sumas First Nations that has got a number of industrial projects happening in their lands.
“This is also protecting them from long-term challenges for flooding because they will be completely cut off as they were in this latest event,” he said.
“There’s a number of things that we’re working on and prevention is probably the best way to prepare for the future.”
Siemens says he hasn’t heard from the government about the $1.6 billion.
“We were expecting an announcement and were watching the federal budget closely. We didn’t see anything there,” he said.
Siemens says the engineering component of it is going to be significant and the building of the pump itself is going to be quite significant — not something that can happen overnight, but they can’t do anything without commitments from senior levels of the government.
“I mean this will be the largest of its kind in North America,” he said.
“We need some answers so we can start the design work.”
As of right now, there has been no official announcement on whether the city will receive the federal funding.
-With files from Sonya Kuitenbrouwer.