Langley City council has given the green light to a task force that will look into solutions for an ailing Brydon Lagoon.
However, potential members are already being warned to manage their expectations.
At its final meeting of the 2011-14 term, council gave unanimous approval to the appointment of a Brydon Lagoon task force and to the terms of reference under which it will work.
The main focus of the Brydon Lagoon Task Force, which will have among its members representatives from several environmental organizations, will be to review findings of a pond management strategy written in 2013 and to identify which of the study’s recommendations should be pursued, City engineer Rick Bomhof told council on Monday night.
The task force will also be asked to look at other existing reports and documents, identify gaps in information and gather local knowledge about the lagoon, where thousands of fish died last August following an extended period of warm weather.
The committee will include two representatives each from the City’s Parks Environment Advisory Committee (PEAC) and the Langley Field Naturalists, as well as a single representative each from the Langley Environmental Partners Society, Nicomekl Enhancement Society and Ducks Unlimited.
Up to two people will also be appointed from the general public and two City staff members will sit on the task force in an advisory capacity.
Additionally, one City council member will serve as a liaison on the task force. That person will be selected once the new council is sworn in on Dec. 1.
The job of the task force is to offer possible solutions to prevent another massive fish kill in the pond and to help improve its overall health, however members must understand that their recommendations are subject to prioritization, said Councillor Gayle Martin.
Among the suggestions that have been made already is that the lagoon be dredged. Over the years, sediment has been building up on its bottom, through the decay of plant life and particles being washed in through storm drains.
Shallow water heats quickly and decaying plant life consumes valuable oxygen — both of which are detrimental to fish and other aquatic life, environmental groups have argued.
However, council has balked at the idea because of the potential costs associated with dredging, which have been estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
Any recommendations will have to be weighed against other projects, Martin said, adding she’s concerned that if council doesn’t approve a task force recommendation “it could be seen that we don’t care.
“There’s no guarantee (something) will get done if the funding is not there,” said Martin.
Once its membership has been established, the task force is scheduled to begin meeting in February, 2015. It will review documents and summarize comments and recommendations over the next four months, with its final report expected to be submitted in June, 2015.
However, Langley Field Naturalist and Brydon Lagoon activist Rhys Griffiths, who led a group of about 45 people on a tour of the pond on Oct. 1, said money should not be an object when it comes to brainstorming solutions.
“We’re looking for feedback,” Griffiths told the group in October. “It can be reasonably wild, because you can ignore such mundane things as money,” Griffiths said.
If something is important enough, he noted, money can always be found.
