qathet Regional District (qRD) will send correspondence to the provincial government expressing concerns about the boat launch at Saltery Bay Park.
At the July 3 regional board meeting, Electoral Area C director and board chair Clay Brander said he wanted to make a motion that the regional board write a letter to the province at the request of Debbie Malthouse regarding the board launch at skelp (Saltery Bay).
“We have done this in the past, as she noted in her correspondence,” said Brander.
Electoral Area A director Jason Lennox said he supported writing a letter.
“There’s quite a few people that bring this up to me, even though I’m at the far end of the regional district,” said Lennox. “Has there ever been any exploration of Saltery Bay?”
qRD CAO Al Radke said years ago, the matter was on a strategic plan and directors of the day were confident there was no public land available for another boat launch.
City of Powell River director George Doubt said if the regional district is going to start writing to the provincial government, it should be specific. He said when talking about the boat launch at skelp, that means the boat launch at Saltery Bay Park, which definitely needs some care. He added that Malthouse had written to the regional district about efforts made to look at another potential location to launch a boat in the vicinity of the ferry terminal.
“We are talking about two different boat launches and two different ideas,” said Doubt. “I understand there probably is none in proximity to the ferry terminal because of the reason the CAO was talking about. There is very likely no publicly available land. If we write a letter to the provincial government, we should be clear about the two different concepts being considered.”
Brander said for clarity, he was proposing to discuss the boat launch at the provincial park.
“It was my concept to do a little more research about the area near the ferry terminal before sending any letters of that type,” said Brander.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said Doubt and Brander had clarified the issue, and that the letter would involve the provincial park.
“Maybe in the letter we can let the province know that the boat launch was actually built by nonprofits in the community in partnership with various organizations,” said Gisborne. “At the end of the day, we would like to see a viable boat launch east of the city limits. We don’t have any property that I am aware of that could serve as a boat launch. The only place east of the City of Powell River that might work that is regional district property would be the Myrtle Rocks regional district park, but I’m not sure that would even work.
“I have also heard from multiple people how hazardous it is to try and get a boat into the water there or getting it back out because essentially the bottom section of that boat launch is destroyed by the ocean.”
Brander said sending the letter to the province serves as a reminder to the government about the problem that exists with the campsite boat launch.
The board unanimously carried the motion to send the correspondence.
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