Groups opposed to and in favour of the controversial Gateway development in the Lee Creek area stated their cases to the Columbia Shuswap Regional District Board of Directors on August 18.
Mike Seymour, a Wastewater Treatment Engineer for MSR Solutions, laid out the development’s plans for a new wastewater treatment method for the board and the unusually full public viewing gallery.
Seymour said the development currently discharges highly treated effluent into the lake and wants to move to on-site disposal.
The planned improvement of the sewage treatment scheme comes after the CSRD board rescinded the first two readings of the development’s rezoning application at their May board meeting. The rezoning application would allow the development to go from housing 22 single-family cabins and 113 RV sites to as many as 292 lots for a mixture of detached single family dwellings, duplexes, accessory upper-floor dwelling units and resort residential spaces.
“Gateway Shared Interest’s owners’ objectives is to secure zoning and future subdivision like the Cottonwood Cove development across the road,” Seymour said.
Seymour said upgrades bringing the sewage treatment system up to the CSRD’s standard will cost approximately $1.5 million, and so current residents do not want to commit to them without confidence that the development will be completed.
“By rezoning the subdivision, these upgrades would be completed to a municipal standard,” he said.
The system Gateway is considering is a rapid infiltration basin and subsurface drip system.
“Gateway is committed to managing the facilities in an environmentally and financially responsible manner,” Seymour said.
Immediately following the presentation from Gateway, Greg Witsky, a band councillor for the Adams Lake Indian Band presented a position paper on behalf of the band outlining their opposition to the development.
Their opposition was primarily based on the development’s proximity to the mouth of the Adams River, an important salmon spawning ground.
“In 2015 less than 3,000 of an estimated escapement of 120,000 sockeye salmon returned to spawn in the Lower Adams River. The last time a disaster of this magnitude took place it was comparable to the infamous Hell’s Gate slide,” the position paper says.
Witsky also criticized the boat moorage buoys near the river mouth and any wastewater treatment system that includes groundwater filtration.
The band also believes that the archaeological assessment of the Gateway site needs to be revisited.
“The archeology study completed for this location needs to be revisited as it only scratched the surface and did not dig deep enough to investigate these potential older village sites,” Witsky said.
Rather than immediately discussing the submissions from the band and Gateway, the board agreed to defer discussion until their September meeting to fully review the submissions with staff.
