Residents rally with petition for boat launch in the Taghum/Blewett area
By Timothy Schafer
A grass roots petition is gaining the attention of the region’s biggest employer as residents of Taghum, Beasley, Blewett and Bonnington band together in the hope of creating a legal boat launch access point on Kootenay Lake west of Nelson.
With the impromptu Taghum boat launch on Fisherman’s Pit Road — 12 kilometres west of Nelson on the Kootenay River — once again taken out of commission by Teck Trail Operations, residents have assembled nearly 300 names in protest and pursuit of regaining access, and are also in the process of forming a boat launch society.
Located on Teck-owned private land, the issue surrounding the boat launch is about liability, with the lands deemed “contaminated” with the age-old tailings of the once active Kenville Mine in Blewett.
But the Fisherman’s Road location remains the only spot on the river west of Nelson’s Lakeside Park launch that boaters, canoeists and kayakers can put into the water, and not have to navigate the treacherous, fast flowing Grohman Narrows to reach the western section of the Kootenay River.
As a result, the boat launch was quite heavily used by people in the neighbouring rural communities, said Jamie Gavin, a representative of the proposed society, and it gave them easy access to the wide, calm waters of the river south of Taghum Beach Regional Park.
“Putting in there you avoid the Grohman Narrows. The narrows are a huge problem for people,” he said. “So a lot of people, families, used the Taghum boat launch every day to take their kids out on the water” where it was safe.”
Having part of its waterfront land as an informal recreation site has not sat well with Teck, and the company has tried to deny access for people putting their boats in there since 2010.
At the time Teck sold a property with a small, well used boat launch beside Taghum Hall to a private interest and the launch was blocked off to boaters.
Boaters then moved to the next available boat launch spot on the western end of the Kootenay River — another Teck property but with no services, no parking and no wharf — on Fisherman’s Road.
Signs warning people off the waterfront — noting contamination — were errected but that did not stop boaters from putting in at the launch.
In mid 2012 Teck asserted its ownership of the waterfront property by reposting “no trespassing” signs at the boat launch area and along the road.
At the time, Teck community engagement coordinator Catherine Adair said the company reposted the signs in response to complaints it received from neighbourhood residents.
“(The property) isn’t authorized or maintained as a boat launch,” Adair told The Nelson Daily in 2012.
“We are very open to that but we have to go through the public process.”
That same year Teck contracted SNC Lavalin Engineering to conduct a site inspection, collecting both surface and ground water samples, as well as gathering soil and sediment for analysis.
Teck also hosted a community meeting in 2012 in regard to the launch, which focused on information gathering, and planned on hosting a second meeting to share findings from the engineering company.
Two years ago a concrete barricade was put in, only to have it removed a few weeks later by industrious residents.
Earlier this spring the barricade was put back in place by Teck, and it was removed soon after by residents.
Three weeks ago a deep trench was dug across the dirt access point to the water, stopping people from backing their boat trailers across the land.
However, Gavin said in a conversation he had with a Teck representative last week that the company is now open to remedying the situation and keeping a boat launch access point in the area — it just might not be in the current Fisherman’s Road spot.
Once the society is set up, and if a suitable site is located, one possible scenario is Teck could turn over the land to the regional district and it, in turn, would be managed by the society as a regional park (similar to Taghum Beach).
Next week the petition will be handed to the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) for consideration, as well as the formal process to launch a Taghum Boat Launch Society will begin.
A meeting is also scheduled to take place between some of the society’s potential members and Ramona Faust, the Area E RDCK director who is responsible for the region.
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