Photo: District of Sicamous

Despite an ongoing campaign for stricter measures to stop the spread of invasive mussels, Sicamous council decided to defer a donation request from the Columbia Shuswap Invasive Species Society to its finance committee.

At a Dec. 12 meeting, council received a letter from the CSISS requesting a $2,000 donation.

In its letter, CSISS said it will be losing about $40,000 in funding next year with the dissolution of the Shuswap Watershed Council. As a result, it will be looking for donations from other regional partners in order to continue educational programs and invasive species management programs.

“I know that this is a priority for council, and they're asking for [a] donation,” said Mayor Colleen Anderson. “We're in a major crunch right now, because as we're sitting at our finance committee trying to figure out how not to spend money, we are faced with things like this.”

“Zebra mussels are a threat to our waterway, and even though we are looking for sources in other spaces, everyone knows where we stand with this,” Anderson added.

Despite the council’s history of pushing for more funding to fight invasive mussels, a $2,000 donation was a tough sell for some councillors.

“We spoke about this in finances, we cannot continue to just grant money to every great cause we have,” said Coun. Siobhan Rich.

She suggested CSISS should reach out to the Shuswap Community Foundation if it needs additional funding.

“We don't have the money to spend right now,” Rich added. “We just don't, and we need to push this to provincial.”

Coun. Ian Baillie agreed with Rich.

“You always feel like a bit of a heel in saying no, but at some point we have to say no,” he said. “Because we do have a duty to make sure we're keeping taxes reasonable as well.”

Some councillors felt more sympathetic towards the CSISS request.

“This is something that we can't afford not to give to,” said Coun. Bob Evans. “Because we need everybody on board to fight this problem before it gets here.”

Despite praising the good work that CSISS does, Coun. Gord Bushell said council shouldn't “fork over any dough” right now, and instead recommended including the request in ongoing 2025 budget deliberations.

“We do have to protect our lakes,” he said. “We're in the budget process right now, and we should take this into our budget meetings and look at it.”

Anderson agreed dealing with the request as part of budget discussions made sense, but underscored the need to continue to push for action at higher levels of government.

“We still need to advocate to the province and the federal government, because it's not just a Shuswap problem, it’s a Canada-wide problem,” she said.

Council agreed to defer the donation request to its select finance committee, which will meet next on Jan. 22, 2025.