Terry Schafer attended the UBCM convention recently and advocated for a pedestrian underpass at Gallagher Lake.
Pedestrian safety at Gallagher Lake was one of Terry Schafer’s top priorities at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria recently.
The Area C director utilized his time there by pushing for a pedestrian underpass at McIntyre bridge.
“In our meeting with Minister Todd Stone, I again politely asked for action on my proposal for a Highway 97 pedestrian underpass.”
Schafer said Stone understood the need and re-asserted that it’s a “no brainer.”
But he also let the minister know that MLA Linda Larson was trying to get $10 million to move the irrigation canal from the base of the rock bluff at Gallagher Lake to the highway. Schafer agreed that this bypass is the best long-term solution for farmers. (The siphon was seriously damaged in a rock slide in January, and a permanent fix is needed.)
As a result of this proposed fix, Schafer said the underpass idea is temporarily on hold.
“I simply requested that the underpass and the pipeline be engineered together,” Schafer said.
The director noted that he approached ICBC, which is considering helping to fund an underpass as a safety measure for pedestrians who need to cross Highway 97.
The convention, Schafer also took part in a rural director’s forum. One issue that he found interesting was how a North Okanagan director was able to “pull” the RCMP contract for rural policing and hand it over to conservation officers.
Schafer said there was also a lot of discussion about water quality and the leaching of undesirables into streams and rivers.
“Upland storage of water was something I lobbied for as we seem to be continuing on a path of drought in the benchlands and more flooding (due to earlier runoff) in the valley bottom.”
Schafer said aquifers are under threat on a continuing basis.
By Lyonel Doherty
