Here's what Sussex will build next in its fight to keep floodwaters out
Town is moving forward with berm, 2 large diversion channels to protect people and property from rising waters
If you stand in the trees and brush between Trout Creek and Kurtis Carter and Kassandra Chudiak's home in Sussex, you can hear water rushing by.
Once a selling point for the couple, who moved into their Meadow Crescent house from Ontario three years ago, proximity to the creek is now the reason Carter has bought a backup property in another part of New Brunswick.
"I really hope this helps," he said of the town's latest flood-control projects. "But at the same time, I still need to have a contingency."
Years after creating a final flood risk mitigation plan, the Town of Sussex recently got the green light from the federal government to begin building multimillion-dollar channels and another berm to divert water around the downtown into the Kennebecasis River.
Like other residents and business owners in town, Carter and Chudiak have had to become experts in dealing with floods in their basement, sometimes as high as four feet, or about 1.2 metres.
And while they're hopeful about the next big steps in the town's flood plan, the couple are still waiting to see how those plans will hold up against water levels that rise almost yearly.
"I think it's long overdue," Carter said.
"I think that they're doing what they think is best. Mother nature is going to do what she wants, and we're just kind of along for the ride."
In Carter's backyard are bits of orange tape tied to trees. He believes these represent where a mounting berm is going to be built to contain water from the creek, which swells in heavy rain.
It's first of three major infrastructure projects the town believes will be difference-makers for protecting Sussex from future flooding disasters.In 2019, the municipality built a berm behind the Gateway Mall downtown.
It's a large barrier made of dirt and natural elements. Placed along riverbeds and creeks, it can contain overflow that would otherwise spill onto roads and other areas where it isn't wanted, said Jason Thorne, the chief administrative officer.
It's "basically where the Kennebecasis River rejoins Trout Creek to the western end of town," he said of the first berm. "[It] has proven extremely valuable and a critical first step."
A second berm will be built this summer, Thorne said, along the section of Trout Creek that backs Carter and his partner's community, and it will extend toward Sussex Corner Elementary School.
According to the master plan, the berm will have an average height of 2.3 metres, and span more than 700 metres, with a trail built along the top of it.
The total cost of the barrier, including the cost of buying necessary properties around it, is estimated at $2.5 million.Part of the berm will be built on school property, Thorne said, so the project needs to be completed by the fall in time for the students' return to school.
"That's to protect a neighbourhood that has been greatly impacted by flooding events over the course of the last number of years," he said, referring to Sussex Corner, which is now part of the town.
"We know that some people, unfortunately, with some weather forecasts, don't sleep at night. So it does have very serious impacts."
Channels to divert overflow into Kennebecasis
Also in the pipeline are two large channels, which will be dug in key areas of the municipality to funnel water from smaller waterways into the Kennebecasis River north of town.
"Specifically, this project is all about diverting a certain percentage of the waters that normally flow through the core of our community and that problematic portion," Thorne said.
One channel will direct water from Parsons Brook in the southeast corner of town into the larger Trout Creek, which passes straight through the municipality and is the main source of flooding downtown. It's expected to be about two metres deep.
The Trout Creek diversion channel will be closer to three metres deep and will connect Trout Creek northward with the Kenebecasis River.
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Crossing several roads and a major highway, the Trout Creek channel is by far the bigger job with an estimated cost of $16 million. The Parsons Brook channel is estimated at $1.8 million
Another reason the green light from Ottawa is a milestone, Thorne said, is that it reduces the timeline for completion of the project by up to three years, and could save the municipality as much as $250,000.
The entire plan, including the two channels, is scheduled to be complete by 2028, and it's a "really critical … project for us to put behind us as a community," he said.
A federal agency that assesses the impact that large projects will have on the environment has helped to streamline the process for the municipality moving forward.
Part of the approvals surrounding the mitigation project demanded the town submit a report outlining the ways diversion channels might impact local environments and species.
The federal government held open houses with residents and Indigenous groups and decided no further research into the impact was needed. This means the town won't need to pay for an in-depth federal assessment.
Thorne said the town still has a list of permits to obtain to be able to build the berm and channels, and it's already bought certain properties and homes it needs to access the areas where those projects will be built.
Carter hopes he and Chudiak will be able to stay,a nd he wants the town to hold community information sessions soon than later so people can better understand how the projects will affect them and their properties.
"I think it's the start of something good," he said. "My hope is that we're able to use more of the land here that we bought and not worry about it getting all kind of washed away."