Two years after an Atmospheric River destroyed wide swaths of the City of Merritt, progress towards flood mitigation has come to a hault.

Mike Goetz says there has been no substantial improvements in flood mitigation infrastructure since the disaster in November 2021, as they are currently awaiting federal funding.

“When we started this, when I sat in this chair the DMAF fund was closed for 13 months so there was no ability to even apply and it came open on July 2 of this year and we got our application in on July 3rd, 165 pages, very concise,” said Goetz.

Expressing frustration, Goetz says they have not heard back from the federal government about whether or not they are successful recipients of the funding.

“They don’t even acknowledge that they got it and our Recovery Operations Centre is working on this every single day and it is a slog and it is unfortunate considering there was a lot of promises made after the event and we have seen none of those from the federal government at this point.”

Goetz says they need the federal government to help cover buyout costs for 32 properties that have been identified as needing a new flood mitigation system.

“DMAF does not do land buyouts, it’s the main critical thing that we need to get done so these people can get on with their lives after two years,” said Goetz.

“The city doesn’t generate enough income to cover that kind of investment and we do need the federal government to get involved but in order to have that happen, the province has to be on.”

Goetz says his frustration lies in the fact that there is a lack of funding for Canadians in times of need.

“It seems to be that there’s a lot of funding for other countries that are having issues, but it doesn’t seem to be any for the people that live in this country and as I explained to the federal government, the tax money that you’re getting is money that we’ve given you to give back to us when we need it for certain things — So this should be a no brainer.”