Lockeport proposing new causeway location to tackle sea level rise, storm surge issues

LOCKEPORT, N.S. —
The Town of Lockeport is a proposing a new location for a causeway into town as one way to tackle sea level rise and storm surge issues.
Designed by an engineering firm, the proposed new causeway would be further inland, higher, and cut off the sharp corner by the Lockeport Beach Centre, taking more of a “lazy S” into town than the existing causeway does, said Mayor George Harding in an interview. 
Private properties will not be affected by the proposed project.
The old causeway would still stay there and the town would use it for extra parking at events, said Harding. 
The project carries an estimated price tag of just over $1 million.
“Sea level rise and storm surges in past years, the back harbour was never an issue,” said Harding. “It was always coming from the south part of Crescent Beach and breaching the dunes. Now with sea level rise and storm surges we’re getting it from the other end now. Really that’s why it's necessary to do something with that causeway.”
Harding said it’s probably a year away before there will be any progress on the proposed project, adding the town is awaiting word about a federal grant program it was informed about a year ago that would be going live. 
“It was a federal grant. Whether it's still there or not after the dust settles after the election, we’re hoping it will still be there and will come live,” he said. “The province is actually the ones that manages it but it's never been opened. Although we were told about it over a year ago, it never opened for applications.”
The grant program is for infrastructure projects for small municipal units under 5,000 people, with government funding at 93 per cent, is what the town was told, said Harding. 
“A project of this size for Lockeport, seven per cent is very manageable within our budget so we are hoping,” he said. “There’s no way our town can afford this project on our own.”
If the town can’t get that kind of grant, then a Plan B or C would need to be created, the mayor said, something “just to shore it up, but the design that the engineers have done and are recommending would be a much longer lasting remedy to the situation."
The causeway is the only way into the island town for vehicle traffic. Even the pedestrian Trestle Trail, the town’s only emergency access route, is currently closed until needed repairs are done. 
Harding said some of the work the town has done in past years with grants from the University of Waterloo “pinpointed all the most vulnerable areas for sea level rise and those kinds of issues and, of course, that area is one of the areas they identified.”
As recently as post-tropical storm Dorian, damage was done to the boardwalk that runs alongside the causeway, ripping it up and hanging it up on its side, said Harding. 
“There’s been times with sea level rise and extra high tides that the boardwalk that runs along the causeway, portions of it lifted right off of its pylons and had to be put back in place after the water receded," he said.
Harding said a public meeting will be held once word of funding is received and before any project proceeds.  
“Certainly, people who have lived here all these years and have lived through hurricanes before, they can see the back harbour is an issue now that it never was before. I do believe our public would positively supportive of this.”
In the meantime, the town has been successful in obtaining a $10,253 grant from the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs under the Flood Risk Infrastructure Investment Program to reconstruct a dangerous area of shoreline on South Street.
“Sea level rise and storm surges has impacted several places there as well,” said Harding. The project will include placing armour stone to shore up the shoreline and prevent erosion to South Street. That street is a vital link to the south wharf with lobster fishermen and boats tied up there so it was quite an economic concern for us if that’s not maintained. 
Harding said he expects the work to be done in the next few weeks.