Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund - Infrastructure Canada Announces Toronto, Vaughan , Markham, Regional Municipality of York Grants

Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund (DMAF) funding has been announced for Alberta and Ontario - the announcement for GTA municipalities has been made March 26.  Funding in the City of Toronto, City of Vaughan and the City of Markham is focused on earlier development areas with limited design standards for municipal infrastructure and limited land use planning surrounding floodplain hazard management. The total funding is $150,388,000.

The Markham projects fall under its long term Flood Control Program and include sewer upgrades in the West Thornhill community where Phase 3 and Phase 4 are being 40% funded through DMAF, the Don Mills Channel flood control upgrades including a central wetland storage/floodplain restoration will replace vulnerable properties to be purchased as well as culvert upgrades, and sewer upgrades in the vicinity of the Thornhill Community Centre which will reduce flood risks for vulnerable populations. Details on the West Thornhill Project are here: link, and the Don Mills Channel project details are here: link

The Vaughan projects include the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Black Creek and Edgeley Pond  - details on the project are here: link

The Toronto project involves the Midtown Toronto Relief Storm Sewer that is part of the city's long term and comprehensive Basement Flooding Protection program. The project will help reduce flooding for almost 900 homes during a 100-year flood event. See details on the overall program here: link

The Regional Municipality of York project involves the twinning of a wastewater collection system forcemain (pressurized flow). This has been called a a significant component of the Upper York Sewage Solutions project. See project details here: link

*** ANNOUNCEMENT ***

Canada helps protect communities across the Greater Toronto Area from flooding
and storms

Four new projects approved in four communities in the City of Toronto and the Regional Municipality of York

Climate change is happening and it is affecting Canadian communities from coast-to-coast-to-coast. More and more Canadians realize that natural hazards like floods, wildland fires and winter storms are increasing in frequency and intensity. For many communities, these hazards are significantly affecting critical infrastructure and can result in health and safety risks, interruptions in essential community services and increasingly high costs for recovery and replacement.

The Government of Canada’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) is a 10-year, $2 billion national program designed to help communities better withstand current and future risks of natural hazards.

The following four projects in the Greater Toronto Area have been approved for federal funding totaling $150,388,299 and for municipal funding totaling $252,682,449.

Location	Project Name	Federal Funding	Municipal Funding
Toronto, City of	Construction of the Midtown Toronto Relief Storm Sewer for Basement Flooding Protection	$37,160,000	$82,840,000
York, Regional Municipality of	York Durham Sewage System Forcemain Twinning Project	$48,000,000	$72,000,000
Markham, Corporation of the City of	City of Markham’s Flood Control Project (Don Mills Channel, West Thornhill, Thornhill Community Centre)	$48,640,000	$72,960,000
Vaughan, City of	Implementing Vaughan Stormwater Flood Mitigation projects	$16,588,299	$24,882,449

***

An announcement was made regarding DMAF funding in Edmonton ($53,000,000) for the construction of two dry ponds in Parkallen’s Ellingson Park =-these are two of 13 planned facilities and are expected to reduce the amount of water pooling in the area by about 84 per cent: ink

An announcement was made regarding DMAF funding in Canmore, Alberta ($13,760,000) for a project involves reinforcing flood mitigation structures along several steep mountain creeks in the Bow Valley to reduce the risks of debris flooding, and re-vegetation and bio-engineering work to control erosion problems: link - more on the project here. 

An announcement was made regarding DMAF funding of the Calgary Springbank Off-stream Reservoir Project ($168.5 million) in Rocky View County which will divert extreme flood flows from the Elbow River to a storage reservoir to be contained temporarily until the flood peak has passed : link . The reservoir would have capacity of over 70 million cubic litres and would be located 15 kilometres west of Calgary between Highway 8 and the Trans-Canada Highway, and east of Highway 22.

More on the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and projects: http://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/dmaf-faac/index-eng.html

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Background on return on investment (ROI) cost benefit analysis to support the Markham DMAF application is here considering its city-wide Flood Control Program that shows a ROI, or benefit cost ratio of over 5 if total losses are mitigated - a lower ROI would result from deferral of only insured losses:

Grey and Green Infrastructure Benefit Cost, Return on Investment Analysis for Flood Control and Asset Management from Robert Muir

The Markham DMAF project ROI values are based on individual project costs and benefits, with these benefits based on deferred total losses (i.e., higher than insured losses). The average ROI benefit-cost ratio is 4.7 for the three Markham projects.

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Benefit cost analysis for infrastructure adaptation to extreme weather and climate change using grey and green infrastructure strategies is presented in an upcoming WEAO paper provided in an earlier post: link.