A
week ago CHBC TV in the Okanagan ran a story (Passionate pleas to
save Marshall Lake)
on a group of people in Greenwood, that are desperately trying to save
one of the few lakes in their area
 |
| Marshall Lake Stewardship Group working to save lake |
The
story indicated that:
The province wants to decommission the structure
over concerns about the dam’s structural safety, the possible consequences to
Greenwood should it fail and the liability of the government. Removing the dam would reduce the lake to about
one-third of its current size which would markedly affect its recreation and
water storage values.
It
also quoted Christopher Stevenson, of the Marshall Lake Stewardship Group, who
stated, “It is a move that will
permanently destroy much of the value of Marshall Lake, a highly valued
recreation site.
“Don’t take out our dam. Let the lake be the
way it is. Take care of the dam. Upgrade and maintain it as a provincial asset
and let us have our lake,” said Stevenson.
In
several conversations I have had with Christopher he has let me know more about
the possible decommissioning of the dam on Marshall Lake, and what it means to
the people in this region.
Just so you know -
there is an economic component to this -- we have few lakes here. Marshall Lake
is part of a recreation / wilderness complex that is well used, and has great
potential for tourism and local use. We
don't have the lakes that the Okanagan and Kootenay’s do; which is why we need
every one we have.
Marshall Lake is
used year round by recreationalist and outdoors people. This is not just
environmental; we’re trying to build our tourism here as well. Meantime the government
is looking at legal aspects, and trying to find loopholes.
The private owners
are being unfairly hit as they will lose their lakefront – it will ruin their
property for at least two years, and permanently in many ways, which will
result in a loss of value. It will also
ruin the BC Forest Recreation campsite.
There has also been
no environmental assessment, and no inundation (flood) study.
They should be
ashamed to be picking on rural BC again.
There are so many things to base a case against them on … environment,
economic, private property rights, rural BC.
The
BC government has said that the dam should become the responsibility of the
local Greenwood Council; however they have rejected this -- likely due to the
cost -- $135,000 to upgrade the dam, and taking over responsibility for its
ongoing maintenance.
As Christopher
Stevenson said, “They don’t have the
resources to take this over. It’s not fair of the province to ask them that.”
That
plus … the costs of decommissioning the dam will probably far exceed the costs
to upgrade, when the loss of property value, and the costs of providing access,
are factored in.
Once
again the BC Liberal government seems more than willing to download provincial
responsibilities on to the taxpayers of smaller communities in rural BC. This isn’t anything new however; it’s
something this government has been doing with more and more regularity – and
in my opinion, it’s wrong!
I’m
Alan Forseth in Kamloops, with the thoughts of one conservative. Now I ask, “What do you think?”
Follow-up:
CHBC TV has run a couple of stories on this. They can be found at:
Follow-up:
CHBC TV has run a couple of stories on this. They can be found at:
3 comments:
This is completely like the current government. You can be sure they have never even visited the area, nor do they actually KNOW what they are doing. They just do.
Once we run out of lakes for them to destroy and forests for them to cut down, I wonder where they'll turn next.
We invited the Minister to visit the lake, when we drove to Kelowna to drop off the petition to his office (a 5 hour trip, return). No one has responded. No email, no phone call, nothing.....
We invited the Minister to visit Marshall Lake, when we dropped off the petition at his office in Kelowna (a 5 hour trip). No one has responded - at all. No email. No phone call. Nothing. Evidently, we don't matter.
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