To the Editor,
Re: Referendum a solution for cost to dams, Letters, May 11.
In response to the letter by Eric Ricker on the Colliery Dam Park dam decommissioning: when a group of people becomes so fixed on their own enjoyment of a body of water that they forget the consequences of a dam failure, they are guilty of narcissism.
The colliery dams are a part of the history of Nanaimo, just like the subsidence from cave-ins and shaft failure.
The dams destroyed part of the most productive salmon stream in the city, and we have a chance to restore it.
The Chase River already supports thousands of spawning salmon and there is no cost associated with “restoring it” as Ricker suggests.
Are we so institutionalized in our thinking that we can’t imagine just leaving a river to its own devices? Do we have to interfere with everything we touch?
Everywhere in B.C. and along the Pacific coast, dams are being decommissioned to improve fish access to streams.
Only in Nanaimo, with its misplaced sense of nostalgia, do we see such a reaction to stream restoration.
It is ironic that people oppose the proposed Raven Coal Mine, but revere the colliery dams.
Think about that for a moment.
Charles Thirkill
Nanaimo
