It was great meeting all of you in the past few weeks and I thought I should update you on where we are at with the Milfoil issue and the creation of an association for Vaseux Lake.
It has taken a few weeks to get consensus on the process to add Vaseux Lake to the other 5 lakes that are presently being treated for milfoil by the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) on behalf of the RDOS. The following is the process as I understand it. The RDOS needs to request to the OBWB that Vaseux Lake be added to the list of lakes being treated yearly. I have asked both Terry Schafer and Tom Siddon our representatives to have the RDOS put through the request.
Once OBWB has received the request we will have to identify the areas we want to be treated to the OBWB. The OBWB will then put a submission to the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural resources (MFLNS). The MFLNS will review the request and provide the permit that outlines the areas for treatment based on environmental concerns they may have. The OBWB also has to get permission from the Canada Wildlife Service to allow a motorized vehicle on the lake. If I run into opposition along the way I may have to create a petition to show the extent of consensus around this issue. I will be working hard to have the roto-tilling done in our lake instead of the harvesting. The roto-tilling pulls the milfoil from the roots, the harvesting simply cuts the milfoil and this is a cosmetic fix and has very little long term benefits.
I have a meeting tomorrow with OBWB to try to find a location where the milfoil roto-tiller could access the lake.
Finally, we should create a homeowners association to keep our community informed and ensure better representation of residents with the various agencies.
It will also assist in accessing funding from various government agencies for the betterment of the lake. In the interim, we have created a Vaseux Lake Homeowners Association Facebook Group to keep you informed on what is happening and you can request to join through the attached link https://www.facebook.com/groups/993381667449448.
If anyone is not in agreement with creating an association, please let me know since it is important that we have a large majority of residents who are in agreement to move forward. If we have a large majority in support for the association, I will arrange a meeting in late September/early October so we can proceed with the creation of the association and identify representatives from our lake to run the association. At this point, we have had only one resident who has indicated that they do not want to participate in an association or address the milfoil issue.
If you have any neighbours that do not appear on this list but would like to be included, please forward this email to them and have them email me back so I can add them to the distribution list.
Thanks for your support and feel free to contact me with questions at 778-848-4005.
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