Honeymoon Bay’s Rolanne Gray wants to draw attention to what she believes is an increasingly prevalent safety hazard along the shores of Cowichan Lake.
Gray is talking about the log booms placed around private properties to delineate swim and/or beachfront areas.
“[It] has been proliferating to a point of becoming a hazard,” she explained. In particular, the problem is with what she calls the “log chains” that span multiple lakefront properties.
“Should a swimmer or person on a non-motorized craft become debilitated and need the safety of the shore, they cannot immediately access it,” Gray explained. “There is a backwash from the water hitting these log chains that makes swimming or paddleboarding near them difficult and sometimes dangerous.”
Gray wonders if the mini-breakwaters are even technically permitted on the lake.
“If so, under whose authority, and with what concern given to the safety of passive recreational users of the lake?” she asked. “If these log chains are indeed permitted why is so much afforded to waterfront property owners and nothing to the public who are entitled to safely recreate in British Columbia’s magnificent waters?”
One CVRD official, providing background, noted it’s actually a complex issue.
The Cowichan Valley Regional District regulates and zones the surface of the water for houseboats and docks and the like.
Log booms, while they float on top, have to be anchored to the lake floor and the lake floor is private property owned by Mosaic Forest Management. In most cases private companies don’t own lake bottoms but Mosaic owns the bottom of Cowichan Lake and Shawnigan Lake.
The official noted it’s their understanding that would-be builders are supposed to apply for a federal permit to construct something in the lake on a permanent basis but then they would need Mosaic to sign off on the project as well.
Not exactly, noted Mosaic company spokesperson Karin Doherty. She explained that Mosaic Forest Management indeed manages the ownership of the lakebed on Cowichan Lake but won’t, and often can’t, sign off on log boom structures.
“When upland property owners on the lake seek permission to anchor to the lakebed for personal dock use, we may enter into a legal agreement,” she said. “We do not provide agreements for structures with boom and chain design. Floating structures not anchored to the lakebed are outside our authority or purview.”
