Launch opens
Boat owners will be able to use the launch in the north harbour this weekend. City of Powell River officials are opening the boat ramp to recreational boaters on Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27. “It will be open,” said Richard Stogre, City of Powell River’s manager of engineering services. “That’s totally based upon the work activity we have in the area.”
Currently, there is a clear path that goes outside the harbour, Stogre said, but that could change. “Large equipment is moving, so there may be a time when we’ll have to shut it down again.”
The boat launch has been closed since construction began on the $7.5 million expansion project, which involves dredging the basin and removing the existing rip-rap from the side slopes, recontouring the bank and putting new rip-rap on the redefined slope.
Dredging was completed by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada deadline of February 15. Pile driving has been going on in the harbour and new floats are being assembled.
While the boat launch is open this weekend, city staff will not be working over the weekend and there isn’t a float available adjacent to the ramp, Stogre said. “They have to have the capability to handle their own boat, without floats on the side,” he said.
During the week, commercial operators have access to the ramp by appointment only, Stogre said.
Interested readers can call the wharfinger’s office at 604.485.5244 to verify if the launch will be open on a particular weekend or to make an appointment for commercial use of the facility.
Project panel
Canada’s environment minister Peter Kent confirmed last week that the stalled Bute Inlet hydroelectric project will remain subject to the highest level of environmental assessment, if and when plans go ahead. Vancouver’s Plutonic Power and General Electric, partners in the massive run-of-river power development, have shelved immediate plans but continue to claim Bute Inlet is in their sights.
Friends of Bute Inlet and West Coast Environmental Law were concerned about downgrades to the environmental assessment processes and had recently appealed to the minister to ensure that the federal review panel appointed for Bute Inlet would continue. Although the current review panel has been disbanded, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency issued a statement confirming the environment minister will appoint a new panel should the Bute project proceed at a later date.
“We’re happy that Minister Kent has done the right thing and made sure that if this massive hydro project comes back, it will get the strongest possible environmental assessment available under the law,” said Josh Paterson, lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law. “This project has a huge potential impact and its wider, cumulative effects on the whole region need to be studied.”
Plutonic announced recently plans to merge with Magma Energy to form Alterra Power Corporation.
