 Pontoon
plan criticized
By Judie Steeves - Kelowna Capital News
Published: November 13, 2008 10:00 PM
Updated: November 13, 2008 11:06 PM
It’ll be a pretty bad Christmas present for local residents if plans
go ahead to dispose of the pontoons from the old Okanagan Lake floating bridge
by sinking them to the bottom of the lake, according to the Canadian EarthCare
Society.
Founder Lloyd Manchester said dumping the pontoons into the lake could disturb
sediments that have been there for thousands of years, and could include such
materials as arsenic.
Those sediments would then circulate in the water column and could enter domestic
water intakes around the lake, he said.
He warned that there’s always the possibility of seeking a court injunction
to stop the pontoons from being sunk as currently planned before the end of
the year, if SNC-Lavalin gets the OK to proceed.
However, EarthCare has written to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office
to request that the plan become a “reviewable” project, a process
that can take as long as a year and include a number of studies.
The process would be triggered if the area involved in the “shoreline
modification project” was larger than two hectares. He said the 12 pontoons
will take up an area of 2.4 hectares on the lake bottom, so that should trigger
the EAO process. In fact, he believes it should trigger a joint assessment
by the federal and provincial governments because it affects a navigable waterway.
Manchester said instead of going through that process, the company should
just recycle the concrete, estimated at 100,000 tonnes.
In fact, it can be crushed and used for a road base, or even to make concrete,
he suggested.
A Seattle stadium was built recently using concrete made from the crushed
concrete from the old one, he noted.
Manchester sits on a public advisory committee of interested parties to the
Environmental Assessment Office, and he was involved when the act was developed.
That committee has asked for more information on whether this disposal proposal
is reviewable.
He commented: “If the public can’t take concrete to the landfill,
why should this be allowed?”
It’s not a good example, he added.
As well, he says there have been inadequate studies of the impact of simply
dropping very heavy chunks of concrete into the lake.
Ministry of environment spokeswoman Kate Thompson said the ministry is still
reviewing data on the application to dump them into the lake.
As well, she said the EAO is looking at the application to determine if it
will trigger the more-in-depth process. She didn’t think a report on
it would be completed this week.
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