As the person behind the construction of many of Castlegar’s trails, I feel I need to comment on the Columbia River Waterfront Master Plan and discussions around a proposed waterfront trail.
When I was working with the original Friends of Parks &Trails Society, our objective was to develop walking trails that would produce a minimal footprint on the landscape, and to enhance these trails by interpretive signs on relevant history and ecology.
The sad state of Waldie Island Trail — which was my experiment in showcasing early Castlegar history in a unique and valuable wetland setting — makes me give up any hope that the proposed riverside trail will preserve similar values. A paved trail along the shoreline will add a monotonous note to what previously was a varied riparian landscape, and introduce disruptions that can only lead to displacement of life forms, much as happened at Waldie.
I generally avoided intruding into other riparian zones in my subsequent work unless it was impossible to bypass them. For those of us who live in an intimate relationship with the river and visit the shoreline regularly, the value of that privilege is beyond estimation.
It is far more then the value of the land in terms of building possibilities. Other landowners whose residences are further removed may be more accepting of the intrusion, but they still will be subjected to increased risk of bank erosion, noise, litter, fire hazard, crime, and nuisance from unrestrained dogs. My neighbours and I had to deal with major erosion to our properties during the high water flows of 1976; the complex work was undertaken at our own expense.
I am in full agreement with the position taken by Ms. Enns (Castlegar News, June 29).
It may be possible to develop short loop trails in certain neighbourhoods, and possibly even link these into parts of a larger system. The key to this is universal agreement by the property owners to be affected, as well as a conscious effort to modify the riparian environment minimally.
Millennium Park could be greatly improved by developing a demonstration wetland that would celebrate the features of a riparian ecosystem and offer some real compensation for previous losses in the area.
The City should not be pitting neighbours against one another, nor considering forcing the issue by questionable historic high-water boundaries, which should be no longer relevant in a regime of flood control and flow regulation.
Any action initiated by the City should be restricted to lands owned by the City, or those willingly ceded by landowners for that purpose.
Walter Volovsek
Castlegar