Wolfcub Creek work set to begin as grant approved

By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Over a year and a half since the May 2023 freshet, design work is set to begin to reduce future disaster risk for Wolfcub Creek in Oliver. 

The Town of Oliver was successful in its application for $150,000 through the 2024 Disaster Risk Reduction Climate Adaptation funding for detailed designs for infrastructure improvements along Wolfcub Creek. 

The Town of Oliver has agreed to give the contract for no more than $150,000 for design work to TRUE Consulting. 

TRUE Consulting has already completed design work for the upstream portion of Wolfcub Creek on Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) land. The designs for future flood mitigation have to tie into the OIB design to ensure that the infrastructure can handle future extreme weather events. 

On May 6, 2023 the freshet overwhelmed creeks in the area, including Wolfcub Creek, and overflowed into people’s yards and at least one basement. 

As the town was trying to better understand the future flood risk in the aftermath of the freshet event, the province announced the new Provincial Emergency and Disaster Management Act (EDMA) that requires that local governments not just react to emergencies, but actively work on mitigation in November of 2023. 

This detailed design work TRUE Consulting will now be creating is in an effort to pursue these mitigation efforts and apply for the Disaster Resilience and Innovation Funding (DRIF) program, which the province announced last year. 

The DRIF funding stream could provide up to $5 million for the town. The report to council notes that working with the OIB, they may collectively qualify for a combined $10 million in funding for the Wolfcub Creek mitigation project. 

TRUE Consulting has confirmed that they can begin the design work in March 2025, and plan to have preliminary work completed by September 2025, which will result in final designs being completed by March 2026. 

These dates will be included in the contract, and if the town is not shortlisted for the DRIF funding, whose application will be this spring, they can elect to defer to the Sept. 2025 intake.