Ottawa rejects canal request

Photo: Town of Oliver

The canal where it goes underground at Gallagher Lake

It doesn’t look like the federal government will be helping the Town of Oliver repair its irrigation canal.

Town manager Cathy Cowan told the Oliver Daily News she has received a verbal rejection from Ottawa in relation to a $22 million grant the municipality submitted for the project.

In reality, the town needs just $5 million to match the $5 million already committed by the province to the $11.5 million project. Oliver submitted the larger grant request in an attempt to comply with criteria for the federal government’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.

The project has been strangled by the bureaucracy of the federal government for years, not fitting the appropriate criteria for different ministries and grant programs despite massive infrastructure funding touted by the Trudeau government.

Oliver council heard from an engineer this week that said it would cost about $900,000 a month to pump water through the canal at 60 per cent capacity should another rockfall occur at Gallagher Lake.

The canal has been running at 70 per cent capacity since a 2016 rockfall, with the town trying to secure funding to reroute the canal from the rockfall zone at Gallagher Lake.

The nearly 100-year-old Oliver canal brings water to 1,400 hectares of farmland along its 17.4-kilometre route between Vaseux Lake and Hester Creek.

– with files from Oliver Daily News