There’s a new 5-part action plan for Nanaimo’s Colliery Dams, the brainchild of Councillor Gord Fuller.
Fuller returned to the Council table Monday night, for the first time since suffering a serious heart attack at the end of January.
Councillors are facing a March 27 deadline from the province, but agreement is proving difficult. And Fuller says he returned for the meeting in large part to put forward his potential solution.
Fuller says he thinks his proposal is the best way to send a message to the province that the City is doing something and perhaps get them to soften their talk on the deadline.
But even Fuller’s motion failed to get full agreement; Mayor Bill McKay and CouncillorsThorpe and Pratt voted against it.
Here is the full text:
That staff work with the Colliery Dams Technical Committee:
1. to develop and implement a revised and comprehensive Colliery Dams Emergency Preparedness Plan that describes the actions to be taken in the event of an emergency at the Colliery Dams, and to submit the plan for acceptance by the Dam Safety Officer by March 27, 2015;
2. to develop and implement a Colliery Dams Surveillance Plan by a date to be determined in cooperation with the Dam Safety Branch that allows the City to track potential flood events and measure water flow and volume in the Colliery Dams;
3. to develop and implement a Colliery Dams Flood Routing Capacity Action Plan, including the stockpiling of necessary materials to be utilized in accordance with the Action Plan, by a date to be determined in cooperation with the Dam Safety Branch to prevent the risk of overtopping of the Colliery Dams in the event of a significant flood; and,
4. to confirm with the BC Dams Safety Branch Comptroller of Water Rights that the combination of revised and comprehensive plans listed below provides an acceptable approach to issues identified in his letter of February 25, 2015:
a. Colliery Dams Emergency Preparedness Plan;
b. Colliery Dams Surveillance Plan; and,
c. Colliery Dams Flood Routing Capacity Action Plan.
5. Correspondence with the BC Dams Safety Branch Comptroller of Water Rights is forwarded to Mayor & Council prior to being sent.
