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Kelowna  

Silt messes up boat launch

The City of Kelowna is waiting on the province before it can deal with a silty mess around the Cook Road boat launch.

The sand collected around the boat launch and dock over the winter, says parks and open spaces manager Terry Barton.

An "enormous" amount of sand from Mission Creek shifted and "parked itself right at the boat launch," he said Thursday.

The accumulation has forced the closure of the dock, but the boat launch is still open.

"It's just that you can't simply launch your boat and get out of there very quickly because there is basically a sandbar you have to go around," said Barton.

Three of the four lanes are operational.

Because the sand is in the lake, which is provincial jurisdiction, the city can't do anything without approval.

"We met with them to see what they would be willing to tolerate, and they agreed a sand dredge, basically removing the sand, would be the best option," said Barton.

Sand dredging is no longer a best management practice in Okanagan Lake but, in this instance, Barton says it's the only solution.

The preferred method would be a suction dredge.

"There would be a piece of machinery that would come in with a big tube on it. It would suck the sand onto the land, where we would have a big sieve," said Barton.

It would then be pumped into large bags and trucked to Rotary Beach Park a few hundred feet up the shoreline.

"That (Rotary Beach Park) is an area of active erosion. This comes at the province's request.

"They didn't want us to just get rid of the sand. They wanted us to mimic the natural processes. The sand from Mission Creek is actually the source of all the sandy beaches between Mission Creek and the Bennett Bridge."

Barton hopes to get approval within the next two weeks. Once approved, he expects the sand removal to take about four days.



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