HALIFAX - The hurricane season is reviving fears about deteriorating dikes and seawalls that some East Coast residents rely on to shield them from the Bay of Fundy's immense tides.
With hurricane Earl bearing down on the region, farmer Doug Bacon of Amherst, N.S., spent part of this week bringing 120 dairy cows and more than 85 beef cattle off his 260 hectares of lush grazing pasture, much of it lying below a series of dikes built hundreds of years ago.
He took the precaution even though the precise track of Earl remained uncertain Thursday, and tides aren't at their highest point of the year.
Bacon, a former president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, has long raised concerns about the condition of the dikes, arguing they should be raised higher and reinforced as sea levels rise and climate change brings storm surges.
"If we get a tidal surge up the bay, it could be devastating if that dikeland should breach. Not only would farmlands be flooded, but highways would be too," he said in a telephone interview from his farm.
Salt would destroy crops in fertile fields, he said, and roads that connect Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and the rest of Canada might be severed.
Bacon said he was surveying dikes this week with provincial and federal government officials and spotted a 40- to 50-metre portion of a dike where one side was worn away in the Amherst Point Marsh area.
In 1869, the Saxby Gale swept up the bay, causing more than 1,200 hectares to flood and tides to top dike walls by one to 1.8 metres.
Former MP Bill Casey, who used to represent the area, believes the great storm could happen again, given that sea levels have risen 30 centimetres in the past century.
"There's a fundamental change because of global warming and rising sea levels. The old dike dimensions just aren't going to be adequate going forward," Casey in an interview.
Experts with Environment Canada say hurricane Earl is arriving at a time of year that rules out a repeat of the Saxby Gale.
Chris Fogarty, program supervisor at the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said tides are probably one to two metres lower than the highest levels of the year.
"It takes a very precise matching of the storm with the highest tide of the year to really cause a situation of major flooding," he said. "We're not in that natural moon and sun cycle that causes that now. Factors unrelated to the storm... are basically getting us off the hook in the Bay of Fundy scenario. So it's not a repeat scenario of the Saxby Gale here."
Forecasts on Thursday show a storm surge of one to almost two metres, but Environment Canada hasn't pinpointed exactly where that will occur. Fogarty also said he couldn't project at this time if a dangerous combination might arise later this fall.
However, some coastal residents feel threatened as the weekend storm approaches.
Don Fletcher of New Salem, N.S., is worried the seawall — a rocky berm — that protects Advocate Harbour may not withstand the winds and crashing tides that hurricanes bring.
About 90 metres of seawall was damaged in a December 2008 storm, prompting concerns that sea water could cause flooding in the community of 200.
He said a federally funded study has been done by the Cumberland Regional Economic Development Association into the problem, and he's hopeful the Fisheries Department will arrange repairs for the structure.
Stephen Bornais, a spokesman for the department, said, "once the report is finished and we have a chance to review it, we can sit down with partners in other agencies and see what can be done."
In the meantime, almost 19 months after the breach, Fletcher said he believes residents are vulnerable.
"Part of it (the seawall) was repaired, but part hasn't been repaired," said Fletcher, the former president of the Advocate District Development Association.
"The bottom line is that it hasn't been fixed and now this weekend we could have a hurricane in here and if we had the right wind and the right tide then Advocate would be under water," he said.
Both Bacon and Casey note that the 2007 United Nations panel on global warming identified the Bay of Fundy as one of the most vulnerable in North America, next to New Orleans.
John MacDonnell, Nova Scotia's agriculture minister, said the province regularly repairs dikes when problems are brought to the department's attention.
He said he believes the province's dikes can likely withstand the storm surges coming this year.
"It's not my thought the storm is going to take out the dike ... but I think people shouldn't leave their livestock there if they have other places to move them to," he said.
However, MacDonnell also said he's had a limited budget, about $900,000 annually, to fix the dikes or build them up higher.
"You never seem to have enough money. ... We'll just try to target those areas we feel would be the more vulnerable items that should be addressed and put our resources there," he said.
Bacon said it's time for Ottawa to provide the provinces with more aid and expertise.
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said he was told about the issue during a roundtable meeting with farmers on Wednesday.
In a telephone interview during a visit to Truro, N.S., he said dike maintenance remains a provincial responsibility and he's reluctant to interfere. The provinces, Ritz said, could have applied for funding under various stimulus projects introduced by the Conservatives to make repairs.
"There were a number of programs that would have been available to them if it had been brought to our attention," Ritz said, adding he'll check further into the matter.
"I'll take a look at it. On the top of my head I don't know of any programing that will cover it at this point."
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On the Web:
Atlantic region areas vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding and erosion:
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/potentialimpacts/coastalsensitivitysealevelrise
National map of areas vulnerable to storm surges:
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/environment/naturalhazards/storm_surge/1