This photo of machinery being used at the edge of a marshy area south of Haynes Point Provincial Park in early September was taken by a visitor at Osoyoos’s Idle-O Apartments on 85th Street who was concerned when the owner of the neighbouring property brought in heavy equipment for land clearing. The owner of the property said he is following provincial environmental policies. Photos submitted
OSOYOOS TIMES-September 23, 2009
By Laurena Weninger – Osoyoos Times
Despite the concerns of visitors at a neighbouring property, the owner of a chunk of wetland in rural Osoyoos said he is following all the rules as he is clearing his land.
“We went about doing it the right way,” said Gary Grelish, the owner of a property just south of Haynes Point Provincial Park. “We dealt with our environmental consultants.”
But North Vancouver’s Steve Oates, an environmental assessment scientist with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, stayed at the Idle-O Apartments on 85th Street from Aug. 29 to Sept. 3 and he didn’t like what he saw going on next door.
“They were completely ignoring those riparian area regulations,” Oates said, explaining there are numerous policies that are supposed to be followed when doing such work.
Grelish said his property is just more than three hectares in size and it is currently undeveloped.
It is made up of a combination of wetlands, high ground and beach.
“At some point we will look toward the development of it,” he said.
But he won’t say what he has in mind or when he plans to take the steps toward a development proposal.
Right now, it is zoned multi-family residential, said Jillian Tamblyn, an environmental coordinator for the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS).
It’s also marked as environmentally sensitive and that means any work done on the property has to follow several levels of regulations.
Since Grelish isn’t developing anything specific, he hasn’t had to take out a development permit.
That means the regional district isn’t involved directly with what is currently being done.
Regardless, Tamblyn said the owner was in touch with staff from the RDOS to let them know what he is doing on the land.
“Our understanding is they are following the best management practices under the provincial government and that they are removing invasive Russian olive trees and Lombardy poplars – which are a hazard tree,” she said.
The tree removal is exactly what has concerned the people visiting the property next door.
“He was working right on the margins of those (riparian) habitats,” Oates said about the marshlands on the property.
“They were dropping trees straight in… they were right on the edge with these big diggers.”
He said the work even included the workers using machinery to pull tree limbs out of the wetlands, where they landed.
Grelish doesn’t deny it and said the work is going as planned.
“We dealt with our environmental consultants,” he said.
There were arborists, danger tree experts and a qualified environmental consultant on the site at various times.
Kelowna’s David Arsenault, a registered professional biologist from EBA Environmental Consultants, oversaw this job.
“Everything was very transparent,” Arsenault said.
“The work he is doing is based on recommendations I gave him a few years back to take the weed trees off the property.”
He said the provincial best-management practices are being followed and a provincial conservation officer has been out to the site.
Phone calls to attempt to confirm this through the B.C. Environment Ministry were not returned by press time.
Arsenault said it is even OK to drop branches into the marshy areas in some circumstances.
He said this is also the perfect time of year for such a job, as it is not interrupting fish or bird “work windows,” when the animals are busy reproducing and growing.
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