Sarnia's director of engineering says it will take over 10 years to fully protect the city's shoreline.
David Jackson delivered the city's shoreline strategy to council during a special meeting Monday, and said they're planning to use sloped stone revetment and groynes.
"The rough estimate is that it would cost approximately $30 million to implement that whole strategy across our shoreline on Lake Huron," said Jackson. "Our current 10-year capital plan shows an annual investment from the municipality of $2 million per year. Combining that with the disaster mitigation and adaptation funding that the conservation authority was able to receive from the federal government, we currently show about $25 million being invested over the next 10 years."
Jackson said a large portion of the project could be achieved with that funding, but the funding will be reduced by emergency repairs.
"We certainly anticipate with the water levels increasing in 2020 we will see more of that required and then beyond that it's hard to predict depending on what happens with the water levels. We certainly hope they will go down and that will reduce that amount of emergency repair work and as we are able to implement more of our permanent protection we would see a reduction there as well."
Permanent improvements to the Lake Huron shoreline in Bright's Grove are set to get underway next month.
There's $3 million allocated for shoreline protection between Helen and Kenwick Streets, and $1.6 million in construction is planned along Old Lakeshore Road East.
The city spent over $1 million on shoreline repairs in 2019.
The U.S Army Corp of Engineers is predicting Lake Huron water levels will reach an all-time high in 2020.