The Municipality of Rhineland is submitting another application to the province's Mitigation and Preparedness Program (MPP).
    
Reeve Don Wiebe says they're looking at a spot near the north-west corner of Altona.

"Where the Buffalo (Creek) flows through, there's a stretch of road with about five homes that are between two low areas. Those low areas flood and when that happens, these people are cut off," he explained, adding this is routinely a problem area to varying degrees.

As a result, officials are considering raising that section of road by about one metre. 

"That would give them road access, even during flooding events," noted the Reeve.

Wiebe cautioned; however, some engineering work may need to be done at the site to assess the downstream impact of the proposal. 

"We haven't quite measured the stretch of road and whether we do it with shale or other materials. Those are still questions," added Wiebe. "We'll probably have to get a pretty secure base. That question could be pre-empted by, if we do this, what's the impact downstream? Are we creating any issues downstream?"

The Mitigation and Preparedness Program is an optional program to assist municipalities to mitigate against future disasters. An MPP program is only established for disasters that are cost-shareable with Canada and when a DFA program is approved by the Manitoba government.

When Manitoba establishes a DFA program that is eligible for cost-sharing with Canada under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, municipalities would have the option to either:

Pay the Provincial/Municipal DFA deductible, or
opt into the Mitigation and Preparedness Program (MPP)

Under the MPP, municipalities will receive 100% of eligible DFA costs back from Manitoba and are required to invest the amount that would have been the deductible into an approved disaster mitigation and preparedness project.