Old bridge, new worry -- Vernon Edition, Daily Courier.

By Don Plant
Sunday, August 24, 2008

The old floating bridge isn‘t heading to Davy Jones‘s locker just yet.

The contractor charged with disposing of the 12 pontoons and two lift-span piers has agreed to conduct more tests of the sediments at the bottom of Okanagan Lake.

SNC Lavalin has applied to sink the 11,000 cubic metres of concrete, but wants a better understanding of what‘s at the bottom of the lake in case the Valley‘s drinking water becomes tainted.

“We‘ll take more samples from the bottom of the lake. They‘ll be analyzed in the lab and the composition of the elements will be assessed,” said Jon Buckle, the Transportation Ministry‘s director of the Bennett Bridge project.

“We want to … give assurances that the ultimate decision is made with the right information in hand.”

Samples taken from two potential dump sites in deep areas of the lake show levels of arsenic, chromium and nickel on the bottom that are above Canadian sediment-quality guidelines.

People opposed to using the lake as a trash pit say sediments stirred up by the weight of the old bridge – 5,000 tons per pontoon – could enter municipal water intakes and affect human health. Richard Drinnan, a retired ecologist in Kelowna, has been lobbying government officials to scrap the plan.

“People who use water from the lake should have some concern about the impact the disposal could have on their health as a result of these metals and other contaminants entering their water system,” he said.

“You need more samples to get a better picture of what‘s down there.”

Drinnan and Kelowna lawyer Glenn Einfeld met with Buckle, project manager Tom Tasaka and an Environment Ministry official late last week. Drinnan told them consultants have “scratched the surface” in their studies so far. He even suggested a company that assessed the environmental impact of sinking the pontoons may be biased because it‘s a partner in the lake disposal.

Drinnan wants scientists to analyze the chemicals in the 50-year-old concrete to ensure they‘re not harmful. He told the officials that modeling tests are needed to predict how sediments would circulate in the lake once the pontoons hit bottom.

Buckle said drinking water comes in contact with concrete in most water systems, but said “to satisfy the concern, we‘re willing to do testing of concrete from the old pontoons.” He also agreed “we could drop an object on the bottom in a deep location and monitor what the effect is.”

Interior Health wrote a report in June saying the possible dump sites off Trader‘s Cove and the District of Westside appear to be at least a kilometre away and 120 metres below the nearest drinking-water intakes.

Still, the health authority asked the Transportation Ministry and SNC Lavalin to
notify water users before the pontoons are sunk, monitor the lake‘s turbidity (cloudiness) once they hit bottom and issue an advisory if water quality may be affected.

Interior Health wrote its report six weeks before consultant D.B. Technical Services found the higher levels of arsenic, chromium and nickel in its two sediment samples.

“They didn‘t know anything about the metals in the sediments, and they have no idea how much sediment will be disturbed and recycled,” Drinnan said. “They need to do a health-risk assessment.”

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) examined how the bridge sinking will affect fish in the lake. It authorized sinking the pontoons in exchange for improvements to fish habitat to compensate for the damage caused by building the new bridge and dumping the old one.

Crews must build new fish-rearing areas along the old and new bridge causeways. The Transportation Ministry must spend $150,000 on restoring habitat for spawning trout and kokanee along Mission Creek.

Yet federal authorities haven‘t done their job, said Einfeld, because no one is examining the potential impact on human health. He‘s concerned project officials may have breached the Canada Water Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

“SNC Lavalin is between a rock and a hard place. They have a contract and they assumed an easy disposal,” he said. “Over a million pounds of product will hit the bottom of the lake … They don‘t know what will be disturbed down there.”

The contractor wants to sink the pontoons by November so winter storms don‘t sink them where they are or knock them into the new bridge, said Buckle. Anchors holding the new bridge in place are also securing the old bridge at the south side, he said. “We don‘t want to see another six-month season of winter storms with that arrangement.”

Consultants have conducted “quick-and-dirty” studies because they‘re under a tight deadline, said Drinnan. The contractor and Transportation Ministry can only take direction from provincial environment officials on how to protect lake-water quality, said Buckle. “We‘ll (wait for) what the Environment Ministry tells us. The ministry doesn‘t see anything of concern right now.”

Buckle hopes to complete the new studies in the next two to three weeks. Assuming they get approval, crews would likely sink most of the pontoons in the lake‘s northern dump site, where the bottom is deeper than 150 metres, he said.
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Another example of how important it is to consider all consequences of even an apparently simple operation.

Some years ago the Ministry of Environment (an oxymoron), NORD, Coldstream and Vernon agreed to apply 24-D, herbicide to kill milfoil, in Kalamalka Lake. Environmentalists opposed the application and it was a cat-and-mouse game as the Ministry people tried to sneak ahead of the demonstrators who attempted to stop the procedure.

Eventually the Ministry succeeded and applied the herbicides. Coldstream was not allowed to use its water intake until the residues reached a certain level expected to take one to two weeks. It actually took about three months before the water intake could be used again. In the meantime residents had to use VID water. Murphy's Law!

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New Protected Areas in the North Okanagan amidst new threats -- By Don Elzer - Vernon Courier

The following is an excerpt from an article published by the Vernon Courier on October 25. It is reprinted with the approval of the author.

With the announcement of the proposed expansion of Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park, many residents will be celebrating, but there are other efforts that have caught the attention of those folks eager for more environmental protection in the Okanagan.

But, there’s also some cause for concern.

Agricultural land at risk in Coldstream

A while back, this column reported on the question of the future of the Agricultural Land Reserve within the possibility of a new super regional district.

As it happens, a common threat to the ALR is about to play out as the Municipality of Coldstream seeks to ask voters to change the use of agricultural land to land used for parks and sports fields.

With the referendum we are witnessing a relatively new provision in the Agricultural Land Commission's mandate that justifies such removal or change of use based on "community need" - something some argue is an illegal consideration, given the current legislation that governs the ALR.

It already appears as though our elected representatives are the one’s that define “community need” to the commission. However, a public outcry over the issue has caused Coldstream council to leave it in the hands of the voters.

Regardless, it’s playing the “community need” trump card against the commission.

There continues to be growing pressure within this region to remove agricultural land from the ALR, which is intended to protect lands that have agricultural capability regardless of external community pressures.

In Coldstream, there is a need for sports parks, but like it or not pushing any kind of community service farther into food production areas will place pressure on those lands. More houses, strip malls, perhaps even industrial areas will follow.

Proponents of excluding certain lands from the ALR within urban/rural fringe areas point to high housing prices and the trend of continued growth as the reasons to make more land available for housing, jobs and public facilities.

Bob Ransford an urban development consultant and columnist with the Vancouver Sun said, “It is nonetheless ironic that the same people who argue that community need should trump agricultural capability also reject the role that the ALR plays as a de facto urban-growth boundary. They argue that the only criterion for including lands within the ALR should be agricultural capability”.

Ransford goes on to explain that on the other side of the debate, the positions are just as entrenched and principle often trumps logic. There are environmentalists unwilling to make certain land-use trade-offs for more intensive forms of agriculture that would result in increased food production and that have no deleterious impact on the land. There are also those who look purely at the aesthetic value of open space, yet are unwilling to accept the realities of farming.

Referendum or not, when land is removed from the ALR using the community need provision, what guarantee is there that future sprawl won't result? Are we placing future food production needs at risk?

You’ve heard it here before; we are without a food security plan in the Okanagan.

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