CIEL SANDER - Special to the Boundary Creek Times
It’s been one year after the decommissioning of the dam at Marshall Lake, but for many area residents the lowered water level has diminished the beauty of the lake with stumps and bare earth on the foreshore.
The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) placed a large dock on the lake in June but with the water level lowered it’s been difficult for some locals to return and use it because the area is physically challenging to use and the shoreline is riddled with stumps.
Now, several local community members have risen to the challenge of finding a way to clean up the Marshall Lake foreshore.
Conversations spearheaded by Nipper Kettle, mayor of Greenwood, has led to a $3,000 grant from Area D regional director Roly Russell to level off parts of the shoreline and remove stumps around the southwestern side of the lake. “At the end of the day, I just wanted to make sure the area was useable to the community. I made that commitment for several people and I made that commitment for myself, I acted as a citizen to help make this happen,” Kettle stated.
Russell wrote in an email, “As Area D representative, I was keen to see the area be improved a little after the water levels dropped. There are a lot of local people that use and love that place, so getting a little bit of work done up there along with the Province to install picnic tables and ensure we have some generally pleasant places to spend beside the lake seemed like a worthwhile project and great timing.”
The Phoenix Forest Interpretive Society chair Dennis Graham agreed that something needed to be done and his organization was asked to apply for the grant so that a contractor could be hired to complete the work. “Whatever we do up there is better than doing nothing,” Dennis Graham said, “for the community to have the area’s recreation values diminished and the landscape changed was devastating. I envision the foreshore can be tidied up and cleaned up quite a bit.”
Clean up work started earlier in the summer, but was halted due to wet conditions. Meanwhile, other local residents have pitched in additional resources. Greenwood citizens Jean and Walter Klinosky donated metal stairs that are planned to be placed above the dock to make it easier for people to access the incline to the lake.
According to Kettle, the work to remove stumps, levelling a section of the lakeshore and placement of metal stairs to the dock is scheduled to resume September 22-29 by local contractor Jerry Sperling.
He also added that the Ministry of Forests is going to repair some “sloughing” along other parts of the shoreline.”
The Marshall Lake area is a BC Recreation site where local residents and visitors can picnic, fish and camp. In the winter time the area is used by the Phoenix Mountain Cross Country Ski Club with a vast trail system of cross country ski trails.