It will cost between $190 and $300 million to protect the Transcanada Highway and CN Rail line between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick from sea level rise, according to a government funded study released today.
New Brunswick’s transportation minister Jill Green and her Nova Scotia counterpart Kim Masland presented three options to protect the Chignecto Isthmus trade corridor in a news conference Friday afternoon.
The two cheapest options (estimated at $190 and $200 million) involve fortifying or rebuilding the current dykes to 10.6 metres elevation, and constructing a water control system across the mouth of the Tantramar River as it enters the Bay of Fundy. The new control structure would stretch from the Westcock marsh across the mouth of the river to the Fort Beausejour side.
A much more expensive third option (estimated at $300 million) would see a longer set of existing dykes topped up and fortified. Those dykes surround the Westcock marsh and continue along Carters Brook up to the intersection of the 106 and 935, and then return back to the Tantramar River.
Other options were considered but scored much lower in the study’s analysis. Those included raising the CN rail line to 10.6 metres and using it to protect the rest of the isthmus, building a bridge to carry the highway and rail line over 10.6 metres, and raising one or both lanes of the highway to 10.6 metres.
The study predicts a five year timeline before construction of the chosen option would begin. That five year period would include time for environmental assessments and further design work, said Jill Green, as well as “any type of cultural protection that would need to happen.”
“We expect a federal environmental impact assessment will be required,” said Green, “which will also involve in archaeological impact assessment. Those can take 18 to 24 months. So there’s there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Financing would also need to come together before construction can begin. Green could not say whether the construction of the project would be split similarly to the $700,000 study, which was split 50-25-25, between the federal and two provincial governments. Green says she and Kim Maslin have requested federal assistance with the project.
“We both acknowledge this is much bigger than our two little provinces. This is a federal project. This is a strategic corridor for Canada. So we are working with our federal counterparts to determine how they can share this project with us,” said Green.
Green did not respond to a question about whether CN Rail, which owns the rail line across the isthmus, would contribute to the funding of the project.
Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton has been calling for the release of the report, which has been in provincial and federal hands for about a year now. “I’m glad that it’s finally been made public,” says Mitton, also pointing out, “we’re really looking at a long timeline before anything is really in place.“
Mitton is hoping that the provincial government will make short term investments in emergency preparedness “in case the dikes breach in the meantime, which could happen any year.”
“And then the other thing is to make sure that the Higgs government, the Nova Scotia government and the federal government all commit to funding the best possible solution immediately, so that things can move as quickly as possible,” says the MLA. “We don’t have time to drag our heels on this.”
Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau says, “it’s really good news for the area. This has been something that’s been worrisome. It’s been something that folks in the Amherst and Cumberland area, and in the Sackville area have have been pushing to address.”
Mesheau echoes Mitton’s concern for short term preparedness in the emergency management organizations from both sides of the isthmus in the meantime, until the 10-year project is complete.
Mesheau says that while he’s like to see it happen sooner rather than later, he acknowledges that “it’s a major project, and the preliminary work that has to happen around it is incredible.”
