Christmas Arrives in Shelley

By 250 News

Regional District Director Shelly Zen Zen  talks with Solicitor General John Les at site of new rip rap project

This rip-rap bank stabilization project for one section of the town site of Shelley may be complete, but in the words of Deputy Premier Shirley Bond, “This is a good beginning.”

The project was not only for flood mitigation, it was  primarily to deal with bank stabilization. 

This past winter,  a low flow of water, an ice jam and some bank sloughing meant one property owner lost a 15  foot chunk  of land in one event,  a month later, another  five feet fell off.  There was a real possibility a back yard shed would end up in the Fraser River.   The sloughing forced a next door neighbour to downsize a greenhouse and shorten it by about ten feet.

Pictures below show before and after:

Before bank repairs made                                   After repairs made

“We needed funding before there was a fund available” says Regional District of Fraser Fort George Director Shelley Zen  Zen.  In fact, her team from the Shelley town site started pushing for dollars in January, it would be March before the Province would announce its flood mitigation fund.

Zen  Zen says she recalls the first letter they wrote to Solicitor General John Les who is also the Minister responsible for public safety  “ It was like writing a letter to the North Pole in December, and you are eight years old.  You are hoping your dreams will come true.  Well, I can tell you, today, Christmas has arrived in Shelley.”

(At right,   Deputy Premier Shirley Bond,  Lyle Larson of the Ministry of the Environment, Solicitor General John Les, and Regional District Director Shelley Zen Zen  look at photo display of before, during and after  repairs) photo Opinion250 staff

The work will stabilize the bank along two properties for now, but there are another 5 properties that need protection.  They are not in as desperate a situation, but none the less, there will need to be work undertaken.  The  cost to shore up the bank from one end to the other is a full $1.2 million dollars.  The section completed was $340 thousand or a little more than ¼ of the   entire project.

The Solicitor General believes his Ministry can assist with that funding “This would have to have another look in the fall, or possibly early next year and I would certainly encourage the community to keep working with Shirley Bond to bring this forward.  Clearly I think we have saved the day for now with the work that has been done, but I know how rivers work.  As you keep putting rip-rap down you have to arrive at a point where the effect of the river disappears, and it sounds to me like that hasn’t happened here yet, so we’re going to keep an eye on this for now.  Next year, when hopefully we have some more money to do some more mitigation, I would like to take a look at doing the next phases of this work.”

Les says he expects to hear more from this community “Communities need to stay in touch with us, to keep us up to date on how these situations are unfolding”.  Les says  communities and the Province have to continue to work together on matters like the  bank erosion in Shelley “This  has been a pretty good example so far, and  I’m sure we can do more in the future.”

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