The City of Castlegar has been granted $250,000 for the development of an asset management and climate change prioritization framework.
The funding comes from the federal Gas Tax Fund, and was announced on Friday by Amarjeet Sohi, the minister of infrastructure and communities. The City of Castlegar will use this funding to bolster its own contribution of $80,000 to developing and piloting a long-term capital asset management plan that incorporates climate change vulnerability assessments of its infrastructure.
An asset management plan basically allows a city to plan for how and when infrastructure will need to be repaired or replaced.
“One piece no one has really looked at is, ‘What about climate change? How does climate change affect the priorities of what should be replaced and when?’” explains Chris Barlow, director of transportation and civic works. “The City of Castlegar has done a lot of work previously on climate change, especially related to our storm system.”
The city intends to use the storm water infrastructure as the pilot to develop an Integrated Prioritization Framework, then refine that framework by applying it to the remaining city infrastructure and develop a toolkit and guide for use by other BC communities.
The $250,000 will help cover engineering costs, as well as other costs associated with the pilot project.
In total, the federal Gas Tax Fund will provide over $73.3 million in funding for 57 capital and capacity building projects in communities across BC.