Sussex 'won't survive' without a $38M flood mitigation project. But who's going to pay?

A week after devastating flooding once again forced evacuations, caused millions in damage, and activated the highest level of the town's community disaster plan, it's clear the future of Sussex is at stake, according to Scott Hatcher, the town's chief administrative officer 

"Without the solution, without the funding, without the mitigation plan — we're going to die a slow and painful death over the next couple of decades," Hatcher said.

Attracting new businesses and people, he said, won't happen "with this cloud hanging over our head. If we don't change that, we're simply not going to survive."

After historic flooding in 2014, 2019, 2020, 2022, and now 2024, it's clear climate change "is real, it's here — and unfortunately our residents are living it." 

Sussex residents aren't the only ones living it. So are the people of Tantramar and the Acadian Peninsula — and across Canada, in municipalities from Merritt, B.C. to Calgary to Windsor, Ont., to St. John's. 

But Sussex believes it knows how to stop the slowly unfolding disaster. The town's ambitious flood mitigation master plan includes a flood flow diversion channel at the town's eastern limits, another diversion channel on Parsons Brook, and stormwater infrastructure upgrades in the northwest and northeast of the town. 

The first project in the plan — a $1.2-million berm behind Gateway Mall — was completed in 2019.

Buying some properties and restoring them to a floodplain will also be part of the solution. Up to 60 homes in a marshy area between Post Road and the back property lines of Bryant Drive may have to be purchased, Hatcher said.

"We have a solution, we've modelled it. We know it will work, and more importantly, it's going to work every time we need it," Hatcher said.

But with a $38 million dollar price tag, that solution doesn't come cheap — and if the past few years have been any indication, it's likely the next flood will arrive before the money does.

Like the creek that runs through the town, applying for flood mitigation funding in Sussex hasn't always run smoothly. It's been a five-phase, seven-year process just to to come up with the current master plan.

The first flood study was published in 2016. In 2019, a joint task force on flooding was struck between Sussex and nearby Sussex Corner (the two communities have since amalgamated). Sussex engaged the engineering firm Gemtech to assist with the assessment and mapping process.

Then COVID hit, tying up limited resources in the rural community and slowing down progress on the flooding file.

By 2022, the town managed to identify a federal funding stream under the Disaster Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Fund and was ready for the first application round in June 2022, Hatcher said.