An open letter to B.C. Transportation Minister Mary Polak:
We must take issue with the half truths and misinformation in Minister Polak’s letter to the editor (Feb. 27 EVN).
On Feb. 5, while Polak, and Justice Minister Shirley Bond, were making appearances and doing photo ops in the region with the new Liberal candidate, and giving out millions of dollars in highway improvements, she claims to have stopped here to be briefed and inspect Hummingbird Creek.
Funny thing, there is one road in and out of Swansea Point, and not one person here saw Polak or representatives from her ministry.
From 1997, and particularly over the past eight years we can pull from our files multitudes of letters written to the MOTI; The premiers’ office; MLA George Abbott, Emergency Management BC (EMBC), the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, the B.C. Ombudsperson, West Coast Environmental Law, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, and other government/ legal bodies. So please do not say you have never heard from us.
A second campaign of letter writing began Jan. 10, 2013. Close to 300 residents of Swansea Point, full-time and seasonal, began writing their MLAs for action on this creek. We know you and your office heard from some of them. Something had to be done before spring freshet was upon us again. And through these letters, eventually Kathy Corrigan, Opposition safety critic for the province, entered the picture. After seeing our file, including 600 pictures which you also have in your office, as well as copies of a Jan. 16, 2013 correspondence to us from EMBC executive director Cameron Lewis, in which he states: “The Province is now in the process of reviewing the results of this work at a senior level to determine if any flood mitigation work can be funded and undertaken this year on Hummingbird Creek.”
Thank goodness Kathy Corrigan made the decision to come and see for herself.
A Feb. 5 BC NDP press release stated Corrigan would be here at 11 a.m. on Feb. 6 to tour the creek. Checking the email at 10:45 a.m. on Feb. 6, one from Cameron Lewis on behalf of the premier was received. His email was sent at 10:05 a.m. and arrived on our computer at 10:25. It states, “Based on our assessment work, the province will be funding and undertaking in-channel works on Hummingbird Creek, designed to achieve a channel that can contain 1 in 200 year return period flows.”
At a public meeting held on Feb. 13, in our fire hall, we found the province’s proposal to repair the creek to be flawed, as it’s based on a “clear water event,” and not a debris flow, the likes of which we experienced in June 2012.
We also learned this project is to be cost-shared between EMBC and MOTI.
The first of the equipment to repair the creek arrived Feb. 18. The plan is evolving slowly as they uncover the damage from years of neglect. We have no idea what the plan will end up being, but you can be sure they will dig their heals in at replacing the six-foot-diameter culvert, identified by residents and, at one time, the province, as a necessary remedy.
As for Ms. Polak knowing anything at all about the vote here on the debris catchment basin, she should check her facts.
Swansea Point residents would have been fools to support a precedent-setting agreement that would have had us paying for ongoing maintenance of provincial infrastructure on a federal creek.
We are very happy something is being done in the creek; however, we are so ashamed of how little has been done to address Hummingbird Creek, or the too-small culvert under Highway 97A, despite our having experienced two debris torrents in 16 years, and many near misses.
Tina and
Dan Keely