Rationalizing, pleading and badgering hasn't worked, so maybe putting some money on the table will do the trick.
Civic politicians announced Monday they're willing to spend $2 million in municipal reserves to cover roughly onequarter of the dredging that's required for the secondary channels of the Fraser River in and around Ladner. The hope is that Victoria and Ottawa will both kick in a similar amount (Port Metro Vancouver has already come up with $2 million) so these waterways are finally cleared of the sediment that's built up over the years.
It's been more than a decade since these secondary waterways have been dredged and since that time the sediment that has accumulated has created a situation that's gone from inconvenient to dangerous. The predicament has been well documented and publicized by various Delta politicians and bureaucrats as well as by the Ladner Sediment Group, a collection of river users who have firsthand experience in the perils of silt-filled channels.
There have been numerous letters, meetings, petitions and even acknowledgements of the escalating problem, but, alas, little action and certainly no solution.
Given dredging has long been a senior government responsibility, the move by Delta council is a bold one, possibly setting a dangerous precedent in terms of downloading some amount of river maintenance onto local taxpayers.
And if the last decade has taught us anything, it's that dredging is far from a one-time deal.
Yet if Delta doesn't make the first move, at least of a financial nature, we could still be talking about this issue five or 10 years down the road. The Ladner Sediment Group was founded in 2008, presumably because the situation had reached a breaking point at that time, yet here we are four years later and a resolution still proves elusive.
I guess Delta could have opted for the safer, and cheaper, approach by continuing to lobby senior governments to take action, a tactic that might have eventually paid off, or perhaps the silting situation would have become so perilous that senior governments had absolutely no choice but to act.
Either is a possibility, but I think the greater likelihood is that provincial and federal decision makers would have continued to pay lip service to a solution that's long overdue.
Delta's willingness to put our money where our mouths are should hopefully convince those in Victoria and Ottawa to do the same.
