The report is complete, but whether the bulk of the recommendations in the $40,000 document sit on a shelf or not, depends on the province.
This according to Columbia Shuswap Regional District Electoral Area D director Rene Talbot, whose gas tax money funded the report prepared by the Fraser Basin Council.
“The report and plan is for all the different ministries; it’s up to them to rectify some of the issues there,” he says.
“The different ministries were at the table. They were involved in developing the plan so it falls back on all these agencies to fix the problems they’ve seen.”
Eighteen members of a planning committee had input into the report, including representatives from various ministries, First Nations and non-profit societies.
The report contains eight goals, objectives and actions around water quality, water monitoring and education, riparian area maintenance and improvement, septic health, recreation, Mallory Creek restoration and lake access.
While the planning committee had easily reached consensus on eight of the goals set out in the plan, the issue of boat trailer access to the lake was a major stumbling block.
Trailer access also drew loud and often angry opposition at a public meeting held at the Ranchero Firehall in May.
But opinion in surveys returned to the Fraser Basin Council in a period of two weeks following the May meeting was divided approximately equally.
Recommendations name Teal Road as the access for trailered boats and call on the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to repair the road and CSRD to install new signage directing non-trailered watercraft to either Gardom Lake Park or Musgrave Road.
The report also recommends several improvements be made by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations.
And there are more recommendations for access at Musgrave Road and Gardom Lake Park.
The report calls for the Gardom Lake Park Society to provide “caddies” (wheeled carts) to assist with the transport of small watercraft to the lake from the parking lot, remain open year-round, upgrade bathroom facilities and provide garbage/recycling bins.
Society chair Doug Hearn says the recommendations will be taken to the group’s AGM in a couple of weeks.
In terms of the caddies, Hearn notes that while the group does get funding from CSRD, it is a non-profit society.
“I don’t know anywhere else where they don’t have caddy attendants; they’ll either end up in the lake or disappear,” he says, noting the idea was never discussed at the planning committee.
“They must have come out of comments forwarded to the Fraser Basin Council, but we don’t have access to those comments, so we don’t know.”
He says he understands the motivation behind the recommendations, he’s just not sure they are practical.
The report is available online at http://www.fraserbasin.bc.ca/Gardom_Lake.htm.