Grant to help Lincoln re-establish shoreline

By Mike Williscraft
NewsNow

The Town of Lincoln’s effort to implement a shoreline protection strategy got a vital shot in the arm with the approval of a $1.43 million grant under the province’s Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance program.

“The Town is grateful for the funding that has been allocated to Lincoln,” said Coun. Dianne Rintjema, chair of the Town’s Community Services & Infrastructure Committee.

“Thanks goes out to Minister (Steve) Clark and MPP (Sam) Oosterhoff. Municipalities are challenged with the growing costs of infrastructure, so when a natural disaster occurs this creates additional financial burden on the municipality. Programs such as this help lessen the financial impact and support maintaining our essential infrastructure.”

As Clark noted to the Town, there is a lot of work to be done.

“(The grant is) primarily for significant emergency response costs related to shoreline remediation including clean-up and hauling flood debris and road restoration,” noted Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

“The final amount you receive will be based on actual costs. Included in your eligible costs is funding under the climate resilience pilot initiative our government introduced in 2019 to help municipalities rebuild infrastructure to better withstand future extreme weather events when making repairs after a natural disaster.”

For Lincoln CAO Mike Kirkopoulos, the grant will allow the municipality to deliver a serious need.

“When a natural disaster occurs such as flooding, the Town’s priority is community safety and ensuring public risk is mitigated,” said Kirkopoulos.

“The recovery phase is where the Town focuses their efforts on assessing financial impact. Therefore, this funding from the province is deeply appreciated especially at this time. This allows us to ensure the municipality will return to the state it was before the storm and damage occurred.”

Lincoln’s past infrastructure Chair, Coun. Tony Brunet said the grant is a big boost in restoring the shoreline.

“This is a positive step towards reestablishing our waterfront. There is a significant amount of capital work to do. We continue to work with our partners at the federal and provincial governments on a long term strategy and I am hopeful that we will hear more news in the future,” said Brunet.

“With this recent application, the Town received the maximum amount based on damage, and that’s a positive sign of our relationship with government and the work staff did to submit this request.”