Frustration is boiling over as residents and businesses along the Fraser River wait for dredging to begin.
"It's a bit of a frustration to try and figure out what's going on," said John Roscoe, chair of the Ladner Sediment Group.
"We're sitting on our hands in anticipation that something's going to happen."
Late last year, after years of lobbying various levels of government the group finally saw some success with the announcement of a $10-million project to dredge the secondary channels in the Fraser River in Ladner and Steveston. The project is a collaboration between Port Metro Vancouver, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, the Corporation of Delta and the City of Richmond. The project is also supposed to includes funds for maintenance dredging for up to the next 10 years.
The announcement was made in mid-December and, at the time, work was expected to begin in July.
There has yet to be any work done in the river and frustrations are beginning to run high with users and residents who live, work and do business along the waterway.
"There are areas that are getting very, very critical," Roscoe said, adding that there are many channels that he will not take his boat down unless it is high tide.
"Up the river it's just getting worse and worse." The silt buildup in the secondary channels of the Fraser River has been an issue in Ladner for many years.
The dredging of the Fraser used to be handled by the federal government, however, the secondary channels have not been cleared in over a decade and the build up is causing problems.
Until 1998, dredging of all channels was a federal responsibility. In 1999, the port authority took over dredging only the main navigational channel. Since then, silt has been building up in the many secondary channels.
Tom Corsie, Port Metro Vancouver's vice-president of real estate, who is overseeing the local channel dredging maintenance program, said this week that the process is progressing and an application to start dredging should be submitted to the federal government by mid-September. He said that if all goes according to plan, the work could start as early as mid-November.
The application has been slowed somewhat due to additional testing that needs to be completed. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) requested the additional analysis because the proposal is to dump the dredged sediment near Orca whale habitat.
The whales are protected under the DFO's Species at Risk Act and the government requires additional studies to ensure the material will not disrupt that habitat or harm the whales.
"We really have an obligation to prove to them that our project won't impact that species in any way," Corsie said.
