A new provincial pilot program aims to help communities affected by extreme weather.
The Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance (MDRA) program was unveiled by Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on June 27. The program provides financial assistance to eligible communities that face extraordinary emergency response and repair costs after a natural disaster.
“This spring we saw the devastating effect of flooding in many Ontario communities,” said Clark in a media release. “We want to help municipalities build back better—to flood damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure to a higher standard, so it can better withstand extreme weather and we know that some municipalities have limited financial resources to improve local infrastructure. By not having to rebuild the same washed-out road or bridge again and again, communities will save money over the long-term.”
As part of a $1 million pilot project, the province will provide municipalities that qualify for MDRA funding with up to 15 per cent above the estimated cost of rebuilding damaged public infrastructure to make it more resilient to extreme weather. Examples could include raising roads to provide better overland flow of water, improving the columns or footings of bridges, or increasing the size of ditches and catch basins to increase their capacity to hold water. Communities that were affected by spring flooding that occurred after March 1, 2019 are eligible for the enhanced funding under the pilot.
Investments that help reduce the risk of repeated damage due to extreme weather can save municipalities, small businesses and homeowners time and money, and keep residents safer when disasters do strike.
“Given that we’ve had two ‘hundred-year’ floods in a few years, I am pleased that we are going to support municipalities to redesign and rebuild essential municipal infrastructure so that it will be better able to withstand future flooding,” said Norm Miller, MPP for Parry Sound-Muskoka. “Our government’s Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan supports updating government policies to improve climate resilience. This is something our local mayors and I raised with the Minister a few weeks ago and Minister Clark has acted quickly to make these changes to help the communities that suffered flooding in the spring.”
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Brian Tapley says
Here is an idea for hydro improvement.
You can’t practically bury hydro services in this area due to swamp and rock and vast distances but a few simple changes could make a huge difference.
One would be to relocate the hydro lines so that they are all ALONG THE ROAD. Get rid of those lines that vanish off into the bush where big trees fall and access is difficult. If the lines were “part of the road” and if the trees where cut back so that a falling tree could not reach the lines this would be a big improvement.
Even if a tree was to somehow hit the line, a repair would be quick and easy since the bucket truck could drive right to the site instead of having to use helicopters, ATVs and such just to get to the location of the fault.
Brushing and other maintenance would be easier and the road would be kept clear on one side at least as well. Possibly there could be some shared agreement so that Hydro got a credit for brushing that side of the road from District roads and this would help with Hydro’s costs or in some cases, maybe the roads people could keep the low brush out from under the hydro lines and get a credit for this from Hydro.
This is simple, can be implemented in stages and would greatly improve reliability of electric supply in many areas.