Merritt to build $80M worth of flood protection over the next 3 years

Additional funding is still needed for work upstream from the Middleboro Bridge. The pre-flood flood plain in Merritt, designed to a 1-in-200 year flood, only listed 130 properties. Now that figure is closer to one-third of the entire community.

“That engineering got redone because the 2021 event was 2.7 times higher than the 1-in-200-year flood. The new flood that we are protecting for is actually significantly higher than what we saw, which means more houses, of course, are in that flood plain. We have gone from 130 properties in the flood plain to 1,274,” said Strang.

A lot of the $80 million project will come in 2027, following an extensive year of engineering. That will bring with it new hurdles for residents, with road and trail closures, and heavy equipment throughout the river corridor.

“We all remember, we all had to leave, and some left for seven days, some for 14, some left for six months, so that is in the back of your mind,” added Merritt mayor Mike Goetz. “Anything that can prevent that from happening again is embraced by everybody in this community.’

Categorized as option ‘Z’, was an L.A.-River-style, sterile concrete river. That idea will remain filed away.

“There is still a significant amount of rock and riprap and very stable flood protection under our feet right now. But as the years go by, this bench will green up, we will see grasses on here, we will see native scrubs on here and we will see a riparian area where, in fact, we are hearing birds right now,” said Strang. “This is a much, much better way to build a dike and we feel we are pioneering the way in B.C. for how to build effective dikes through many of our low-lying communities.”

That use of set-back dikes, also factoring into Strang’s success metric for the overall project, not only wanting to simply protect the community.

“Does the river look like what is behind us or does it look like a wall of concrete? I don’t want my kids to come back in 10 years and walk along the river and say this looks like garbage. I want Merritt, I want Merritt residents, myself, my kids, my friends to be able to walk along this river, enjoy the river and and not be afraid it.”

“Those are my success factors. We shouldn’t have to live in fear of another flood but we should be able to also enjoy the natural beauty we have in Merritt,” added Strang.

by Michael Reeve

Merritt to build $80M worth of flood protection over the next 3 years

Our Community