RDCK allocates funds to help search for new boat launch site near Taghum
By Timothy Schafer
The search is officially on for a new boat launch for the western section of the Kootenay River in the Taghum/Blewett region.
The Regional District of Central Kootenay board of directors recently allocated $10,000 to electoral areas E and F from the feasibility reserve to review potential locations for a boat launch in Taghum/Blewett.
The money will enable the directors and the board as a whole to determine suitable locations and if a service is required for a new launch.
The residents of Taghum, Beasley, Blewett and Bonnington have been asking for the boat launch to stay open on Teck-owned land off of Fisherman’s Road for several years.
Some of those same residents started a petition to help the cause.
But seeing as that launch is located on Teck-owned private land, the issue surrounding the boat launch is about liability, since the lands have been deemed “contaminated” with the age-old tailings of the once active Kenville Mine in Blewett.
Teck is still assessing the impacts of historical tailings — not associated with Teck’s current or former operations — in the Fisherman’s Road area. The tailings were deposited intermittently between 1890 and 1956, but Teck and its predecessors did not own or operate the mine which generated the tailings.
Preliminary results in 2014 indicated elevated levels of metals associated with the historical tailings in isolated areas along Fisherman’s Road.
But it is 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 is quite heavily used by people in the neighbouring rural communities.
Once 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 a local society as a regional park (similar to Taghum Beach).
