City of Vernon looking into returning section of creek in Polson Park to a more natural state

A section of Vernon Creek in Polson Park will be getting back to nature.

The City of Vernon is working on projects at Vernon and BX creeks starting this week.

Mark Dowhaniuk, city infrastructure manager, said a fish abundance survey will be conducted in both creeks as a precursor to future projects.

“We're trying to understand the population of fish in BX Creek as well as Vernon Creek and we need that information to do some work related to the creeks,” said Dowhaniuk.

On BX Creek, the city is planning a sediment-control basin that will control the amount of sediment coming in to the city for flood protection.

“We just want to control how much material is coming down into the lower reaches of the creek, how much sand and silt and rock ends up in our culverts,” he said. “Capturing it before it gets to the city is one of our major priorities.”

Dowhaniuk said the work in Polson Park is “very much related” to the BX Creek work. The federal government views the BX Creek project as damaging to the creek, so the city will be making improvements to Vernon Creek as compensation.

“We are looking at naturalizing a portion of the creek,” Dowhaniuk said. “We are going to be doing some improvement to habitat at Polson Park. That would be removal of some of the concrete channelization within Polson Park.”

Dowhaniuk said recycled concrete was placed along the banks of the creek in some parts of the creek and the first area to be addressed will be at the north end of the park.

“We would look at removing some of that and naturalizing some of the slopes coming in to the creek and planting native vegetation that provides better habitat for fish.”

Those native plants would also shore up the banks and lessen erosion from the moving water.

The work in the park will support the city's parks planning process.

“The city is looking to do a bunch of work in Polson Park, but before we can do that, we really want top understand how the creek moves through the area and make sure that we plan around the creek and potential flooding as well,” he said. “We are trying to have that balance where the water still moves through the area, but it is also more of a feature within the park and provides good habitat for fish.”

The pond is not part of the immediate plans, but Dowhaniuk said it will be looked at down the road.

He added before any work is done on the pond, there will be extensive public consultation.