First Nations, municipalities and regional districts can now apply for funding for projects under the new Green Infrastructure Adaptation, Resilience and Disaster Mitigation (ARDM) program.
The program combines $81.8 in federal and provincial dollars to support new flood mitigation infrastructure projects for individual communities up to $10 million, and joint applications submitted by multiple communities up to $20 million.
“Last year’s atmospheric river events were a stark reminder that flooding can happen anywhere in B.C., at any time,” said Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. “With this new program, we’re supporting First Nations and local governments to not only prepare their communities for flooding events, but to help prevent them from happening in the first place.”
In a news release, the province said that eligible projects include installing flood protection works, upgrades or retrofits to existing infrastructure, such as dikes, flood walls, pump stations, seawalls, bulkheads, jetties and dam flood risk reduction, opening buried watercourses, restoring wetlands and restoring natural shoreline protection buffers through wetlands.
Applications for the program are open until Oct. 7.
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