Monday, July 08, 2013

Colliery Dams Park Gets Reprieve


Chief Doug White III Request Honored
Options To Dam Removal To Be Explored

Chief White addressed city council on the matter of awarding the tender to begin removing Colliery Dams.  Expressing his concerns that the Snuneymuxw have serious concerns about how the fishery on the Chase River will be affected by the current course of action the city is pursuing, he requested that city council postpone the decision to remove both dams.

He and city council agreed to a thirty day period where all affected stakeholders can consider all their options which will eliminate or greatly reduce any risk to the fishery in the Chase River.

Chief White expressed his concern he had witnessed someone taking salmon fry from the river, to be moved to VIU. When he asked what was being done it was explained they were taking fry from the river to guard against their lose during the destruction of the Colliery Dams. This action in spite of the fact Snuneymuxw had never been consulted about this measure.

Chief White opened his presentation to council by explaining that 50 years ago to the day, his Grandfather had won a significant battle establishing the rights under the Douglas Treaty for his people to hunt any time they pleased regardless of whether it was hunting season or not.

As it now stands the tender to remove the Colliery Dams will not be dealt with until after further investigations of the options open to mitigate the safety risk presented by these dams.

allvoices

4 comments:

  1. J. Katelnikoff9 July 2013 at 04:09

    I'm relieved that our City Council have respected Chief White.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps now we can finally get a fair look at the alternatives, which clearly the city had absolutely no interest in before. Their studies and reports have been so one sided, as a taxpayer, I recent having my money spent this way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This decision is most welcome and in no small measure is a tribute not only to Chief White, but to all those who have mounted and maintained the pressure to get five councilors off their perch to examine this question properly.

    Congratulations are in order for: Chief White; Jeff Solomon and his legion of supporters; Mark MacDonald and Philip Wolf of the much revitalized Daily News; Toby Gorman of the News Bulletin; and countless correspondents who have taken the time to write to both newspapers over the past few months.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think congrats are also in order for Nanaimo Info Blog, they seem to have covered this story right from the beginning, even before the Daily started to pay attention.

    ReplyDelete

Your comment will appear after moderation before publishing,

Thank you for your comments.Any comment that could be considered slanderous or includes unacceptable language will be removed.

Thank you for participating and making your opinions known.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.