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The provincial government of New Brunswick has revealed a project to realign and raise the thoroughfare leading into Darlings Island – a stretch of road that has a history of severe flooding.
Minister of transportation and infrastructure Bill Oliver said that work on the project, which costs an estimated $1 million, will begin later this month.
“The Darlings Island Road, as many people in the area realize, has been a major problem each spring for the past number of years, probably going back as far as 10 years,” the minister explained in a statement.
CBC News reported that, once raised, the road will be in line with the elevation of the nearby covered bridge, which sits roughly six metres above sea level. Portions of the road will be raised more than two metres as part of the project.
Federal funding has been requested from the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program to reimburse some of the costs of the project.
Oliver explained that over 100 homes are affected whenever the roads flood each spring.
“It’s an annual happening so that’s why we decided to go ahead and fix it.”
The minister added that the government hopes to start on the project soon and finish everything by the end of October into November.
The project’s announcement comes after the Insurance Bureau of Canada recently issued a report which found that this year’s spring flooding – which affected New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec – led to nearly $208 million in insured damage.
