Dear Honourable Mary Polak, this is to inform you that your colleague, Honourable Todd Stone, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, is planning to destroy a red-listed riparian ecosystem by building a road this year through the BX Creek wetland as part of the Hwy 97/Stickle Road/20th Street Extension proposal.
He and his ministry officials are under the perversely mistaken impression that this is what the people of Vernon want.
The threatened ecosystems, habitat, plants, and animals are all mentioned in the Golder Associates Environmental Assessment, August 2015. Unfortunately, it appears that Stone and his deputies are choosing to ignore this report. Under threat are two red-listed ecosystems including the black cottonwood/red osier dogwood and common snowberry-rose.
There are eight red-listed and 20 blue-listed plant species of concern. The cattail marsh ecosystem is blue-listed. There are at least six species of fish in BX Creek, and other fish in Swan Lake that use BX Creek to spawn.
Red-listed birds that live in this area are the Western grebe, Swainson’s hawk, Western screech-owl, burrowing owl, peregrine falcon, and prairie falcon. The red-listed American badger, and Great Basin pocket mouse are found here.
Blue-listed mammals include Townsend’s big-eared bat, spotted bat, wolverine, Western small-footed myotis, fringed myotis, fisher, Western harvest mouse, and Northern bog lemming. Blue-listed amphibians and reptiles include Western toad, gopher snake, great basin spadefoot, painted turtle, Western skink, North American racer, and Western rattlesnake.
Blue-listed birds include the great blue heron, short-eared owl, barn owl, American bittern, olive-sided flycatcher, horned lark, and barn swallow.
Raptors that use this special ecosystem as a breeding ground include osprey, bald eagle, northern harrier, red-tailed hawk, American kestrel and great horned owl. This is truly a special treasure that needs to be preserved.
Clarke et al (1993) said, “Swan Lake and BX Creek are considered very important (my bold) bird areas. Swan Lake is of extreme importance to migratory waterfowl and wintering birds of prey due to its size and characteristics.”
This waterway, its surroundings, and all of the threatened species are protected under such acts as the BC Water Act 1996, and BC Wildlife Act.
The BC Water Act 1996 provides protection for water courses, to “prevent imminent and long-term harmful effects to fish and wildlife habitats, fish and wildlife populations, and water quality and quantity.”
The proposed 20th Street Extension more than qualifies as an imminent and long-term harm to an area that Mother Nature has been working on for the past 10,000 years, since the last Ice Age. We owe it to ourselves, our future generations, and all of these amazing plants and animals to preserve them. It should be made into a park, not destroyed by unnecessary road-building.
This is not to mention the exorbitant cost of this project (9.8 million of BC taxpayer dollars), and that and that there is a far better way to solve the Stickle Road/Hwy 97 intersection problem that is far less costly and doesn’t involve the BX Creek wetland at all.
That solution is a large 4-lane highway roundabout, that would cost 1/3 to 1/2 of the current proposal, that would keep large trucks on the highway where they belong, not rumbling down back roads and residential streets full of pedestrians, children, and cyclists, that would prevent the need for crazy U-turns in the Walmart parking lot, that would keep highway traffic moving, and that would get rid of the two preserved dangerous left turns across two lanes of 99 kph highway traffic in the current proposal.
In case you have been told that there is not enough room for a traffic circle, a large 4-lane highway roundabout requires 200 x 175 feet, and there is 260 feet available between the railway and the Frontage Road, i.e. plenty of room.
The issue of the railway crossing on the west side Stickle Road is easily solved with drop arms, and if the Frontage Road has to be repositioned, that is far better than ruining a red-listed wetland.
I will speak for myself and for the majority of people in Vernon and in B.C., that we do not want our tax dollars spent on the destruction of a precious wetland that is home to so many threatened species.
Barbara M Rawlek Stone
Vernon
