SLIPP is not sliding away – not yet anyway.
Shuswap Lake Integrated Planning Process steering committee members met in City of Salmon Arm council chambers Feb. 1 to discuss the project’s future.
The Fraser Basin Council had been asked to take over administration of the process at the end of 2012 amid concerns regarding oversight and communication issues.
SLIPP was created in 2007 in response to concerns regarding increased development, pollution entering lakes in the Shuswap watershed, and conflicting recreation demands.
Ian McGregor, then-Fish and Wildlife manager of the Ministry of Environment’s Thompson Region, was the main catalyst in the group that included stakeholders from various levels of government and environmental groups.
Priorities were established with one of the top ones being the need for water-quality monitoring, something that couldn’t be accomplished without a substantial cash infusion. Two years ago, the Thompson Nicola Regional District, Salmon Arm, Sicamous and Columbia Shuswap Regional District electoral areas C, D, E and F agreed to fund a three-year pilot project with annual allocations of $335,000.
Prior to his death, Electoral Area C South Shuswap director Ted Bacigalupo, who was a champion and chair of SLIPP’s steering committee, enthusiastically kept partners up-to-date on activities.
Following his death, McGregor was overseeing both technical and administrative roles. The funding partners had hoped to relieve McGregor of the administrative pressures allowing him to concentrate on the technical committee, where his skills were invaluable.
This was something CSRD chief administrative officer Charles Hamilton made clear at a Jan. 9 meeting at the regional district office, a suggestion that led to McGregor’s resignation.
“Ian McGregor has been the driving force behind the initiative and I don’t want to see his role diminished in any way; given his technical expertise and his history with the SLIPP initiative,” Hamilton emphasized, noting he had simply suggested a more formal oversight because public funds are involved and because he was being inundated with questions about SLIPP’s status.
“I think it’s very unfortunate that Mr. McGregor has elected to step aside because his contributions have been essential to the success of this process,” Hamilton said. “At no time was anyone on the steering committee or on staff questioning that. The intention was not to be critical of his performance but simply to strengthen what I perceived to be perhaps somewhat less than robust administrative oversight.”
Those concerns seem to have been quelled and an air of optimism renewed at the recent steering committee meeting in Salmon Arm, where CSRD’s Area F North Shuswap director Larry Morgan was elected chair.
“We had a good positive meeting, we’re encouraged about working with the Fraser Basin Council and we’re going to provide more oversight, at least this year,” he said, noting there will be a minimum of four steering committee meetings this year. “We’ll have to get into the details before we know where we’re going and what, if any, changes we need to make. Beyond that no decisions have been made at this point.”
Morgan admits he was “set back a bit” at being elected chair of the steering committee, considering his former criticism of the process.
“Now I’m wearing a different hat, so I have to view this with an air of responsibility to the process,” he says. “I was more of a heckler; now I’m responsible for helping to set the direction of SLIPP going forward. We want to make it work. It might be working differently than it has in the past, but we wanna make it work.”
Jim Cooperman, president of the Shuswap Environmental Action Committee, said he had been worried about SLIPP’s future and relieved by the tone of the Feb. 1 meeting.
“Top marks are deserved for how SLIPP has improved co-operation among all the levels of government and the three regional districts within the Shuswap watershed,” he says. “Mapping has been completed and is available on a public website that provides clear direction for foreshore planning, as well as for the successful restoration efforts that have been underway. Although SLIPP has had to survive with minimal funding, it has managed to put the focus on the most critical need, water quality monitoring, which is now in its third year.”
SLIPP’s public advisory committees and partner agencies will meet in March and the steering committee will meet the following week to address specific projects that are underway or slated to get underway this year.
