Eroding Winnipeg Riverbanks Need Help
As many residents in the South Winnipeg-St. Norbert ward know, a $1.5 million riverbank erosion protection project was initiated in King’s Park in 2015. This year, the project will continue with reforestation and pathway restoration. More details are available at King’s Park on my website.
Riverbank stabilization is very important but very costly to undertake, as outlined in the news article prepared by CBC News. My thanks to Bartley Kives for covering this story.
Eroding Winnipeg riverbanks needs federal help, Coun. Brian Mayes says
City faces $200M backlog of work on riverbank stabilization but spends less than $2M annually
By Bartley Kives, CBC News Posted: May 30, 2016 12:28 PM CT
City council’s riverbank czar is banking on the Trudeau government to help shore up Winnipeg’s crumbling riverbanks.
The City of Winnipeg plans to spend $1.7 million this year to stabilize riverbanks along city-owned property. This barely allows the city to keep pace with a $213-million backlog of riverbank-stabilization projects that city engineers have deemed critical or otherwise necessary.
St. Vital Coun. Brian Mayes, who chairs the council committee responsible for riverbanks, said he hopes Winnipeg’s riverbanks will get some of the $5 billion earmarked in the federal budget for water and waste improvements and “green infrastructure.”
“This does seem to fit the federal green infrastructure requirements as I see them, so that may be another opportunity,” Mayes said Monday at city hall.
The city owns 106 kilometres of riverfront, or about 45 per cent of the banks along the eight navigable waterways within Winnipeg. In recent years, annual spending on public riverbanks has ranged from $1 million to $2 million.
9 priorities: The city budget identifies nine stretches of riverbank as the top priorities for stabilization (see list below). Kendall Thiessen, the city’s riverbank management engineer, said the city came up with the list by assessing every city-owned property along the Red and Assiniboine rivers.
Properties along smaller waterways — the Seine River, La Salle River and four creeks — have not been assessed.
“We’ve looked at the probability of failure — those conditions that affect riverbank stability or the rate of erosion of those sites,” he said. “We also looked at the other side of the equation, which is the consequence of failure. What are we losing if we continue to see riverbank erosion or unmitigated instability on those sites?”
Plans to stabilize the west bank of the Red River in the North End and Fort Rouge will be developed in conjunction with plans to extend active-transportation corridors through those areas, Thiessen said.
Winnipeg riverbank stabilization priorities: $26.8 million
Money allocated for this work this year: $1.7 million
Top priorities for stabilization work:
1. Red River, along Canoe Club: $6.1 million
2. Red River, along D’arcy Drive: $3.6 million
3. Red River, from Lyndale Drive Park and Lawndale Avenue to Claremont Avenue: $3.2 million
4. Red River, River Road to Rivergate Drive: $2.9 million
5. Red River, Redwood Avenue to Alfred Avenue: $2 million
6. Assiniboine River, Edgeland Boulevard to Academy Road: $1.9 million
7. Red River, along Tache Avenue, from Provencher Boulevard to Avenue de la Cathedrale: $1.7 million
8. Red River, along Guay Park: $1.6 million
9. Red River, along Crescent Drive Park: $1.5 million
Source: 2016 capital budget
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