[LookOutSugarLake] Kokanee Lodge Effluent Discharge Conditions

Sun May 6 16:07:09 EDT 2007

Gentlemen and Interested Citizens;

We are residents of Vernon who look down the White Valley to the shimmering snow peaks of the Monashee Mountains surrounding Sugar Lake, with great wonder and desire to be among them. The natural beauty, pristine quality and accessibility of the Monashees and Sugar Lake for clean, recreational, post card quality activity is a tremendous asset to the region and the province. 

Please let us join the list of concerned citizens, who have already written with many expressions of bewilderment and emotional angst, to request your every effort to preserve this unique environment. 

Not only is this unique environment a valuable asset; the excrement in question is also a potential resource. Apparently, tourists from around the world are attracted to this part of Beautiful BC; bringing with them their exotic excrement for free. If you allow their poop to be dumped into Sugar Lake, it will soon become an algaeic cesspool of little interest to those tourists. But if you require that the poop be properly processed, it can become a valuable conditioner to enrich the thin soils around the proposed resort. The very act of demonstrating "green" technology processes for poop husbandry and energy requirements, etc., is a valuable attraction for eco conscious travelers. 

Can you imagine how attractive a free run of poop in Sugar Lake will be? 

We are all becoming eco conscious citizens; perhaps at different rates, who are expecting government to provide ecological stewardship and leadership. Unless government takes action to preserve this unique environmental niche immediately, the reputation of BC as Beautiful, the proposed resort, and the vast tourism potential of the Sugar Lake region will be short lived. Each year we invite our friends in eastern Canada to come kayaking on the Shushwap, camping and back country skiing in the Monashees. Will we be so proud if the area becomes a cesspool of commercial waste? No.    

The potential value of this pristine environment, as a pristine environment, is the positive opposite face of the far more urgent issue of assured environmental degradation and all the losses and costs that will accompany its unsightly and unhealthy proliferation along the Shuswap watershed, if the poop is allowed to flow unchecked into the presently pure, sweet waters of Sugar Lake. 

Tie up the turds and realize the unique beauty of Sugar Lake. 
We expect dog owners to stoop and scoop; we expect resort owners to circumvent abnoxious effluent.
Help create an eco resort; not an eco disaster. 

Your urgent attention would be preferable to a pungent legacy.

Greig Crockett 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Claude.Labine at campbellsci.ca 
  To: mike.reiner at gov.bc.ca ; env.minister at gov.bc.ca ; Premier at gov.bc.ca> 
  Cc: ric.baker at gov.bc.ca ; MayesC1A at parl.gc.ca ; Premier at gov.bc.ca ; conrad.pryce at gov.bc.ca ; jerry.oglow at nord.ca ; huguette at imagine-ere.ca ; Claude.Labine at campbellsci.ca ; WWW.ENVMail at gov.bc.ca ; gmason at globeandmail.con ; vpalmer at direct.ca ; lookoutsugarlake at sensociety.org ; melanie8 at telus.net ; larryarcand at uniserve.com ; dvdporten at sierralegal.org ; Paul.HasselbackDr at interiorhealth.ca ; hankcameron at hotmail.com ; tom.christensen.mla at leg.bc.ca ; george.abbott.mla at leg.bc.ca 
  Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 8:41 AM
  Subject: [LookOutSugarLake] Kokanee Lodge Effluent Discharge Conditions

  Dear Mr. Reiner, Premier Campbell, Minister Penner, officials and concerned citizens,

  One of the reasons I purchased land on the Shuswap River below Sugar Lake was the unique nature of this area.  As an ecologist and climatologist I realized many years ago, that this watershed and the valley which produces it is very unique. At this latitude, one does not find many similar valleys that are this pristine and natural.  A simple way of summarizing this is to say that the upper and mid-Shuswap is probably one of the cleanest rivers in North America at this latitude.  One should recall as well that it is the only all-Canadian salmon river at this latitude.

  I do not understand the decision for this sewage discharge to be allowed. You may be following governement procedure but I am not sure how you justify this as a citizen of this planet. Did you at least think of the people who live and rely on this watershed? Try to place yourself in our situation where, now when we want to drink from the river or swim in it, we risk illness and in worst case scenarios, death.  Could you please tell me how you would feel if you were told that sewage effluent was going to be introduced into your water supply? I would be very interested in knowing how you will answer this question.

  It is only through a quirk of government decisions that the B.C. Ministry of Environment has stewardship over this section (between Sugar Lake and Mabel Lake) of the Shuswap River. Given that this would normally a salmon bearing river (and will eventually when a fish ladder is installed at the dam at Shuswap rapids), the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans would have this responsibility. It would be interesting to know what their decision would have been.

  Although we are a more remote and low population density area, I think of this area as a last chance to show some leadership and basic concern for the quality of our environment.  If this is the type of decisions which your agency and the present B.C. government is pursuing, then I am very worried for the continued quality of life in this province.

  Premier Campbell and Minister Penner, I would like to know what you think of this decision which is being done during your mandate. Could you please also let me know what you would do if you were told that effluent would be introduced in your water supply? Would you simply just start boiling your water?

  I very much look forward to your answers, Mr. Reiner, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Penner, and I trust this decision will be appropriately reviewed.

  Regards, 

  Claude Labine

  President,
  Campbell Scientific (Canada) Corp.

  Email/Courriel: claude.labine at campbellsci.ca
  Courriel Général/ General Email: dataloggers at campbellsci.ca
  www.campbellsci.ca

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