Boat Dock Bylaw Dumped In Lake Country

District of Lake Country Council has rescinded 1st and 2nd readings of its water intake protection bylaw.

The bylaw would have prevented re-construction or future building of docks on Kalamalka, Wood and Okanagan Lakes.

Mayor James Baker tells Kiss-FM news there was too much disapproval from the public.
” People thought that the shallow water and fast
speeding and/or inappropriate boat activity is something we should be addressing rather than dock owners docks.”

He says a new bylaw will be drawn up but not without hearing more from the community.

” And we’ll create it with more public input and we’ll have meetings in the respective locations people were concerned about losing their docks.”

Baker says he hopes find ways to better educate boaters who ignore the speed limit in the area.

” We want to try to educate people to go a little slowly in shallow water, especially around our intakes. Even though our intakes are in deep water, the turbidity can get down to them.”

Baker hopes to meet with the province and tourist associations to get the word out to slow down.

He says there won’t be any new bylaw in place for this season.