Cottagers act to keep beachfront barrier

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This article was published 29/03/2011 (5370 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AN unauthorized rock erosion barrier built to protect four lakefront cottages at Victoria Beach — and ordered removed by the province — is now the focus of what could be a long court battle.

The cottage owners filed a motion Monday asking for a judge to block a March 17 order by Manitoba Conservation to remove the barrier until the issue can be fully dealt with in court. The hearing takes place tomorrow in Court of Queen’s Bench.

Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie said Monday that because the matter is now before a judge, the province is halted in its effort to have the rock wall removed from Arthur Beach.

“We’re in this sort of stymied position,” Blaikie said.

The province ordered the wall, also called a revetment, removed before the lake ice breaks up, as heavy machinery can only get access to the beach via an ice road.

The cottagers are Robert Conly, Barbara Suderman, Fred Buffi, Susana Dul-Buffi and Helen Anderson.

They argue in court documents that their properties have been hit hard by erosion and that if the barrier is removed, their properties will be at further risk due to storms on Lake Winnipeg.

The most recent damage happened last October in a gigantic storm. Lakefront cottagers at Victoria Beach and other communities in Lake Winnipeg’s south basin and on Lake Manitoba fear if they don’t do something now, more land and maybe their cottages could be washed away in the next storm. Lake levels are expected to be high again this summer.

Conly said in his affidavit that he’s had his cottage up for sale since the fall of 2009, but it hasn’t sold because there is nothing to stop erosion.

He also cited a survey showing he’s lost 42 feet of land in front of his cottage to erosion since 2008.

“I am particularly concerned that, as I lose land, the cottage itself will be at risk of becoming unstable and possibly subject to structural problems,” Conly said in his affidavit. “As my family cottage is a log structure circa 1920, which is cemented into a concrete foundation and centred around a massive brick fireplace, it is impossible to move.”

He said he and the other cottagers are now trapped in a “legal void” over which level of government has authority over the project, the province or municipality.

Cottagers who oppose the revetment claim the structure is the worst way to protect the beach, as it does not allow the lake to replenish the beach with sand.

They say the entire community should be involved in the process, because they fear the beaches will be lost by construction of more revetments and other erosion-control barriers.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca