Going well beyond the fifteen minutes allotted to public comment at this week’s Council of the Whole meeting, Bowen Islanders brought forward a variety of perspectives on plans for the long-term management of Mannion Bay. Each speaker deemed himself, ultimately, “a friend” of the Bay, noting the importance of taking care of it. Council kept this spirit of co-operation intact by approving the majority of the recommended actions that make up the long-term management strategy crafted by the chief bylaw officer, Bonny Brokenshire, but decided to save the discussion on bylaw enforcement, and consequently the issue of live-aboards, for another day.
The founding member of the Friends of Mannion Bay, Bruce Russell, told council that the abuse and misuse of the Bay by a few has caused deterioration to Mannion Bay that the community at large must endure. However, he added that recent communications with some of the “boaters” on Mannion Bay were encouraging.
“I accept their belief that they too are friends of Mannion Bay; however, we appear to differ on what likely is the most contentious issue: live-aboards.”
In a letter written to council, Russell outlined in detail a number of behaviours (the use of the Bay as a dumping ground, improper disposal of boat sewage, the use of questionable anchoring or buoy systems, for example) that would simply be eliminated if the municipality were to enforce the land-use bylaw, which makes it illegal to live on a boat off Bowen’s shores.
“We do not want to allow or encourage any more live-aboards in Mannion Bay or any other bay on Bowen Island. While the details of how we phase out the live-aboards that are currently in the Bay can be discussed later… if we do not nip the live-aboard situation in the bud this time, we can be certain that as other jurisdictions deal with their live-aboard situations, we will have more.”
Link Irelan told council that he has lived on Bowen for two years, on a property directly across from Sandy Beach. He described a number of activities that take place regularly in the bay and are “endured” by local residents, including the sound of generators at 3a.m., loud music, boats that never leave the bay as well as “higher end” grievances such as people coming on to private property to steal water and electricity, using public garbage bins for private use, and beach parties where garbage and broken glass is left behind.
“Although I applaud the idea of making new rules that will enforce these things, we already have rules in place and need to enforce those. I worry that if we allow live-aboards to stay, even temporarily… we’re sort of flip-flopping back and forth over what we’re allowing people to do.”
Lifetime Bowen resident Adam Taylor told council that living close to the Bay he has experienced similar grievances as Irelan (people stealing firewood off his property, for example) but he would like to see clean-up and remediation efforts for the bay and its shores move forward, and the controversial issue of live-aboards be dealt with as a separate issue.
“We’ve done three clean-ups of those waters with a group of underwater divers over three years, and we’ve pulled up just over 3,000 lbs of garbage” said Taylor. He added that it is estimated that half of that garbage was likely dropped into the water deliberately.
“The worst example was a single live aboard over by John Hurlburt’s place, he was there for a year or 18 months and after he vacated, there was an area about twice the size of this room that had two marine deep cycle batteries, four car batteries, two generators, an entire boat kitchen… and assorted personal stuff.”
Taylor said that this incident does not reflect the behaviour of all live-aboards, but that there could be no guarantee this kind of thing would not happen again as long as people are living in the Bay and with no enforcement.
Taylor had earlier compared the Bay to a park, saying that what is tolerated on the water would never be tolerated on land. He brought this analogy forward a second time.
“One thing that Metro Parks does is they don’t allow residential use in the parks – but they do have caretakers, so it is a slight way to move around that.”
Jim Wright, a 56-year seasonal resident of Bowen with eight family properties on the north shore of Mannion Bay, stood up to express his appreciation to Bruce Russell and council for their work on the Bay.
“As Bruce Russell was pointing out, this is an extremely complex situation. But in this management strategy, you have managed to get your minds around this and reduce it to this simple, clear management strategy.”
Wright stated his belief that the coliform situation in the Bay needs to be addressed.
“This is a disgusting situation that has gone on for way too long,” said Wright. “Also I do agree with recommendation number four [of the Mannion Bay Management Strategy] which is the social planning option. We don’t want to be having people without shelter, and in the big picture, I hope that this municipality always gives thought to the least advantaged members of the community because that is really going to determine what kind of community we have… but that doesn’t mean being soft, because we do have to ensure that this live-aboard problem gets resolved.”
Damien Bryan told council he’s had a boat for all of the seven years he’s lived on Bowen, and that there probably hasn’t been a week in that time when he has not sailed into the Bay either in the early morning hours or late evening.
He said he hoped a way to maintain Mannion Bay could be found, without spending lots of money, and that he hoped a way could be found to accommodate the people living on boats in the Bay.
“I look at the live-aboard situation and, here on Bowen we are 3,500 people sitting on the doorstep of two million, and we have four people living on the Bay. I like to think we live in a community that understands not everyone can afford million-dollar real estate. And I would rather have them living here, spending what money they do have in our community, than in an SRO in the Downtown Eastside…” said Bryan. “I wonder if we’ve looked at how we could incorporate people who live aboard to take ownership of the Bay. I have personally dragged up off the beach, and I have asked live-aboards to get on my boat and help me drag boats off the beach. And I can promise you, that if there is no one living on the bay you will get boats dragging up on the beach, whether they are worth two-thousand dollars or two-million dollars. Because the unexpected happens with the ocean.”
Bryan concluded his talk with a question.
“If we get rid of the live-aboards and do testing and find that the Coliform levels are still high, and the environmental assessment says its really been leaching from the old septic tanks around Mannion Bay, then what do we do?”
Following Bryan’s statements, Council moved quickly through its votes on the five steps of the Mannion Bay plan, and assured the public that this meeting was just the beginning of the public input into what will be a long process.
