LETTER: Dredging to improve ferry access to Balfour is wasteful and environmentally dangerous

To the Editor:

A recent email, “Kootenay Lake Ferry Service Improvements”, reports that B.C. will start dredging this fall Sept. 24-Nov. 30, six days a week from 7-5:30 p.m., with expected night operations.

This is major dredging as opposed to earlier reports of minor dredging to improve ferry access to Balfour on the west arm.

Major dredging can only adversely impact already fragile west arm fishing. Has there been a proper review of the consequences? What will dumping such a large volume of dredged material into the main lake do?

In 2016 the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure had carefully researched and proposed a plan to make Queens Bay the terminal instead of Balfour. This would make the Kootenay Lake Ferry similar to the successful Galena Bay to Shelter Bay ferry on Highway 23 north of Nakusp — only one ferry with 20-minute trips making hourly service, replacing the two smaller ferries that struggled to keep up with the traffic.

Balfour businesses and Queens Bay residents were somehow able to achieve a political decision to keep the terminal at Balfour in 2016 assisted by a $9,500 grant from the Regional District of Central Kootenay.

Those who actually catch the ferry daily for their livelihood believe this is wasteful and environmentally dangerous. Dredging makes no sense whatsoever — even the ferry crews are against their ship entering the West Arm because it is often congested with boats whose operators don’t know that the large ferries can’t stop for them.

Tom Lymbery | Gray Creek