Musseling up against a lethal invasive

Editor’s note: As a result of an editing error, part three of this series did not run Wednesday as planned. Therefore, it has been combined here with part four. The series concludes tomorrow with part five and some interesting suggestions for the future of Skaha Lake Park.

The invasive mussel species of most concern – quagga and zebra – are originally from Eastern Europe and transferred to our waters in the ballasts of ships that were filled overseas and emptied here.

Mussels reproduce rapidly. One single adult mussel can produce millions of microscopic offspring each year that are spread by water currents and wave action. They destroy ecosystems that support other fish, therefore, killing them off.

Mussels have no predators; nothing eats them; nothing kills them; you have to dig them out.

Since their arrival, the mussels have made their way west across North America into the northwest zone of Washington and Idaho. This leaves B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan to form a last-stand defensive alliance to prevent local waterways from being infected.

The alliance was shaken last December with the mussel detection in Montana, reinforcing the enormous challenge of detection and public education among boaters required to fend them off.

To date B.C. has only voluntary inspection stations at various points around the province. If they get in, what then?

In Alberta and B.C., thousands of miles of irrigation system pipes are buried to move water to a multitude of crops. If the canals that feed them were infested with mussels they would clog up those pipes. The beautiful vineyards and orchards in the Okanagan rely on irrigation to produce crops. The same scenario holds true for those irrigation pipes.

Stinky beaches, clogged pipes, ruined businesses, what a massive, devastating impact that would be if mussels reach the Okanagan.

The cost, both in theory and reality, will be staggering for a province or state to absorb. It is pretty obvious that our blue space – our lakes – need protecting.

In Penticton, the lakes are an integral part of our parks.

Now with this information what should I do with it? There are all these problems, but there are all these opportunities to be proactive, make changes.

I attended a meeting of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan Steering Committee.

In my view, only three members of the committee were truly dealing with parks, all parks. For instance, one member’s main interest was the school board’s interests, another was public events and so on. I want to give them all credit for their endurance and thank the three members for their persistence, which achieved some very important sentences, change of wording, and above all, the description of what a park is.

I reflected back on 2002, then as a member of the Protect Our Parks group, our aim was to protect our parks from commercialization. The word that leads exactly to commercialization is “lease.” A lease means you have lost control on the property you have leased out. If you issue a “licence” you can inspect the property to see that it is not being abused.

The result to attempt to stop commercialization of parks was by public referendum in 2002. The question was, “Do you approve of the City of Penticton council adopting Bylaw 2002-42, which would dedicate the following parcels of city owned land as public park land?”

There was a group of twelve important parks listed, included were Lakawanna Park, Queen’s Park, and Skaha Lake Park.

The “yes” vote was 96 per cent but the voters when voting did not realize there was a loophole. A loophole you would only find if you read the complete referendum document held at City Hall.

This loophole has led to the disappearance of Queen’s Park, half of Lakawanna Park and almost 27 per cent of Skaha Lake Park. The loophole is still in place, but now the wording is slightly different.

The history of our city councillors and mayor has been to procure properties on Elm Street and beyond, affecting Skaha Lake Park.

That started in 1922 and on through 1925, 1930, two in 1941 and 1942. In 2002 or 2003, Munson Mountain Park was purchased. Since then an amazing amount of money has been spent on parking lots not parks. Three properties west of what was Queens Park are valued at $5 million.

There needs to be a better balance on how funds are spent, on recognizing the value of not commercializing our parks or we will end up with no parks at all.

Back to Skaha Lake Park, a park saved from being commercialized.