Cottager fears ‘public lynching’ at gathering

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2011 (5450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GREGG Hanson says he has lost four pounds and many more hours of sleep in the past two weeks, worrying about why he’s become such a pariah.

The retired president and CEO of Wawanesa Mutual, 2010 United Way campaign chair, and former board chairman of The Winnipeg Foundation is at the centre of a storm over what should be done to prevent his and several other lakefront cottages at Victoria Beach from falling victim to shoreline erosion and the whims of Lake Winnipeg.

Hanson and about a dozen other cottagers want to build — at their own expense –a “revetment”, a stone structure, on one of the community’s summer beaches that was pulverized in last October’s cyclone-like storm. The proposal calls for tons of rocks and gravel to be dumped along the cliffs that now define the beach and sloped towards the beach.

Other cottagers, who do not own lakefront property, say Hanson’s plan could prevent the sandy beach from ever returning to normal. They say the rock wall would take up too much space on the beach and not allow new sand to be washed in by the waves to replenish it naturally.

The issue has split the community, and the municipality of Victoria Beach has called a public meeting Wednesday at Fort Garry United Church Hall before it goes to a council vote Jan. 18.

“I just don’t understand how it got so badly derailed,” said Hanson. “Our group is being painted as the devil incarnate. I feel like I’m going to a public lynching on Wednesday.”

Hanson said he, his family and cottage neighbours have slowly watched the shoreline erode over the past 40 years as Lake Winnipeg’s level slowly rises, swollen by water flowing from a watershed that includes Saskatchewan, the Dakotas, and Lake of the Woods.

Hanson said lakefront cottagers have sought the best advice on shoreline erosion and have gone beyond what’s been done in the past to get approval by the municipality.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca