RM approves first step to shield beachfronts

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This article was published 21/12/2010 (5468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The rookie council at Victoria Beach narrowly approved the first step of a controversial erosion-prevention plan Monday that could see its postcard-perfect public beaches transformed forever.

The 3-2 vote allows cottage owners along the Alexander and King Edward beaches to hire an engineer to begin preliminary work on the construction of a huge rock-and-gravel wall to protect their summer residences from falling into the lake in the next big storm.

Other cottagers throughout the south basin of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba are also shoring up their beachfront properties this winter — heavy trucks and front-end loaders need ice on the lake to operate — following the devastating “weather bomb” cyclone that hit the province in October.

“We believe time is of the essence,” cottager Gregg Hanson said of the Victoria Beach project. “The whole sense of urgency has become number one on everyone’s mind.”

Hanson and cottager Mark Tooley said the proposed “platform” would be built down the length of the beach and would reclaim land lost to erosion, to the public benefit. The three-metre-wide wall would serve as a public walkway, but a barrier of granite boulders and other materials would be placed in front of that bank, extending about 11 metres into the beach.

They must also submit their plan to the province’s shoreline-erosion technical committee before getting final approval from the municipality early in the new year. They want to start work in January and be finished by April.

But Victoria Beach Couns. Karen Boyd and Penny McMorris said the public should first be informed of the project before councillors approve it.

“People don’t want to come to the beach in the summer and be gobsmacked with the construction,” Boyd said.

However, Reeve Tom Farrell said the council can’t always be asking for public input, which in this case could delay construction for a year.

“Some of these decisions are not always pleasant,” Farrell said.

That sense of urgency is compounded as the province is already forecasting widespread flooding this spring. With so much excess moisture in the Lake Winnipeg watershed, the chances are that much greater that its level will be high again this summer and more prone to wave-caused erosion.

The council was also warned that to stand in the way of these projects was to invite possible lawsuits.

Lakefront cottager Ken Champagne and others said they have the legal right to protect their property from being washed away by the lake — Champagne and others on nearby Patricia and Arthur beaches lost up to six metres of valuable frontage to the October storm.

Champagne, a provincial court judge, took the extraordinary step of hiring a crew to drop boulders and rocks in front of his cottage shortly after the storm to save remaining land, but he’s drawn the ire of some who claim he’s defaced the beach.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca