No plan to fix damaged Eastern Shore berm, residents told
Some residents of Lower East Chezzetcook along Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore say they feel the provincial government is abandoning them.
At an invitation-only meeting Wednesday night in Jeddore, they said they were told the Department of Natural Resources has no firm plan to invest in repairs to a damaged stone berm that protects a lake with a dozen homes next to it from the Atlantic Ocean.
"It makes me very frustrated and sad," said Margie Wade, who's lived on Big Lake for 40 years.
A vicious windstorm in early January brought a powerful storm surge that sent waves crashing through the stone berm that separates Long Beach and Big Lake, which is also known as Meisner's Lake. A large gap opened, allowing salt water to flood the lake and putting many homes at risk of flooding.
For more than two months, the lake became a tidal estuary as the rise and fall of the tides flowed through the breach in the berm. Creeks and brooks were also filling and emptying with ocean water.
Repair could cost up to $9.4 million
Instead of fixing the break right away, the government waited for the results of a consultant's report by CBCL Ltd. The report, a coastal risk assessment, is still not finalized.
It shows a full repair to the entire berm, a 1.3-kilometre, five-metre-high gravel dyke, would cost $9.4 million.
A second option would be a slightly lower dyke of 4.5 metres that would cost $6.3 million.
A third and final option was a repair of the breached section only — what residents have been asking for — at a cost of $600,000.
"The whole problem is climate change, rising waters and increasingly violent storms," said Natural Resources Minister Margaret Miller. "Should we be expected to protect those properties?"
Previous damage, repairs
In 2010, there was another break in a different section of the berm.
At the time, repairs were made quickly and residents say it was at a fraction of the cost of the $600,000 estimate given to patch the latest break.
That repair job has held up to the constant pounding of the surf over the last eight years.
The municipal councillor for the area, David Hendsbee, said the provincial government needs to make the fix.
"If they fixed it eight years ago, then why not fix it again this time?" asked Hendsbee.
Homes in danger
Subsequent storms since January have continued to shift rocks around and for now the breach has been sealed back in by Mother Nature.
The lake, as well as the brooks and streams that flow into it, have returned it to their normal state.
But the CBCL report, which is expected to cost $30,000, shows the homes around the lake are in grave danger and will eventually fall victim to flooding, some as early as 2020.
Residents say that's an even bigger reason to make a fix now, before another big storm rips the berm open and floods the area again.
"I bought my children lots to build on and they can't, because it's not going to be here for them," said Wade. "We're just being told 'tough, we'll come when you start flooding' and that's it."
'I won't give up until the ocean takes me'
Susan Boland, 59, has lived on a small island on the lake for 26 years.
It has a bridge that takes her to the berm and the beach.
She says her property will be gone unless the breach is fixed.
"The problem is not going to go away and our homes are going to be taken. They say I have until 2020," said Boland. "I haven't given up, but I don't know what I can do. I know I won't give up until the ocean takes me."
Residents were told at the meeting they should consider putting their properties up on stilts or fortifying their homes with rock walls.
It was also suggested they get coastal flooding insurance.
