City receives grant funding to help cover cost of flood mitigation work in Riverside Park

Photo: Castanet Staff

High waters in 2020 forced the closure of the pier in Riverside Park.

The City of Kamloops has received $750,000 in grant funding for flood mitigation work at Riverside Park — money the city says will be used to protect the park and critical infrastructure from high waters.

“Creating a permanent flood barrier will reduce the amount of municipal and provincial resources required to protect our infrastructure and allow the province to redeploy some of those resources to other communities,” Greg Wightman, the city’s utilities services manager, said in a news release.

“The project provides the opportunity to incorporate accessibility and other improvements to the Rivers Trail while increasing the protection of our critical infrastructure.”

The city intends to use the money to raise the grade of the Rivers Trail sidewalk through the park and complete bank stabilization near the Riverside Park pier, building on work done in 2018 on an emergency basis.

A raised grade in the park would prevent the need for temporary diking, which is what the city has done in recent years when high waters have threatened the park.

The grant funding is part of money doled out by the province from the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund.

Work on the project is expected to get underway in the coming months.