Flood-prone Moncton area may take 3 years to fix

People living in a flood-prone area of Moncton may have to wait two or three years for work to be completed to address the issue.

Westbrook Circle is a subdivision near the Moncton Coliseum and residents have had to damage caused when nearby Jonathan Creek floods.

Edgar Poirier, a resident in Westbrook Circle, said he had the first of two major floods at his property in 1999. The other one happened in December of last year.

But he says he's lucky as some of his neighbours have had several feet of water in their basements six or eight times during that time period.

Last week, engineers from the city and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure met with residents to tell them about work to fix five culverts that direct the flow of Jonathan Creek.

They were told it could likely be 2018 before all the work could be completed.

Alcide Richard, the director of design and construction with the city's engineering department, said a culvert owned by CN that crosses under the railway tracks has to be replaced first as engineers must work their way upstream.

While people weren't happy with our answer, they did understand the importance of getting it right.- Alcide Richard, Moncton engineer

In December 2014, the city signed an memorandum of understanding with CN to replace the culvert closest to the Petitcodiac River.

A call for proposals closed on April 20 and now the city and CN are evaluating those proposals.

"So within the next month or so we are hoping to have an engineering firm that will start the design with the anticipation that construction will start September, October type of time frame, this fall," Richard said.  

Because the CN tracks have to remain open during construction, he said that makes it a complicated project, which is expected to take about a year to complete.

Once that's done, the provincial government will start to address the culverts it is responsible for upstream.

The city hopes culverts on Main Street at Jones Lake, and maybe even George Street at Centennial Park, can be completed in 2016.

After that, work on the two culverts closest to Westbrook Circle, tentatively scheduled to be replaced sometime in 2017 or 2018, depending on how long the previous projects take to complete and on capital funding from the provincial government.

"While people weren't happy with our answer, they did understand the importance of getting it right," said Richard.

"Overall, it was a positive meeting last night, in the sense that at least we were in front of people, were talking, we're opening dialogue."

He said the city also promised to keep people in the area aware of the timelines.

Residents concerned over property values

As for Poirier, he says that timeframe means his neighbourhood could flood another six times, which makes his property essentially worthless.

"We can't sell. We couldn't give these things away right now. I mean, they are not worth anything," he told CBC.

Poirier says he understands the complicated engineering work that needs to be done and how it has to be done correctly and that will take time.

"The problem is with the hope, is we're only going to see it in two or three years from now," said Poirier.

"They've got to rebuild all these culverts. I mean everybody knows you don't rebuild a culvert in three hours."

Besides the potential for another flood, the other issue he and his neighbours have is who or when someone will compensate people for past damage and potentially future damage.

While insurance covered the damage the first time, he wasn't able to get affordable insurance afterwards.

So he paid for the most recent repairs out of his own pocket.

Poirier confirmed area residents plan on forming a group, which will meet with local MLAs to start to address the compensation issue.