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Cheakamus River CDZ remains ‘extreme’ hazard

River below Daisy Lake a no-go for rafting companies, but cars, trains and recreation permitted The Ministry of the Attorney General has turned down a request to allow local rafting companies to operate on the Cheakamus River below the Daisy Lake Dam

River below Daisy Lake a no-go for rafting companies, but cars, trains and recreation permitted

The Ministry of the Attorney General has turned down a request to allow local rafting companies to operate on the Cheakamus River below the Daisy Lake Dam, after a new land use study rated the hazard level of the area "extreme."

"We’ve got this incredibly low snowpack this year, which is creating water shortages all over the place, and which is going to have a lot of effect on us this summer," says Mike Sadan, the owner and operator of Wedge Rafting.

"I’ve been pushing for a four-week exemption just to get us through the summer, because as the legislation is written the province has the ability to grant an exemption. But based on the information I received, the Attorney General’s office has reclassified the area’s hazard as extreme, and our request for an exemption was turned down."

The legislation in question is the Order in Council that created the Garibaldi Civil Defense Zone (CDZ) in 1980. According to engineers and geologists, the natural basalt rock Barrier that holds back Garibaldi Lake above Rubble Creek is unstable and could go at any time, either in pieces or all at once.

Because of this, the town of Garibaldi was relocated years ago, and a restriction was placed on the types of activities that could take place in the area.

Commercial activities were restricted because they brought people to the area. Surface water activities like rafting on the Cheakamus River and boating on Daisy Lake were prohibited because the impact of the debris flow from a breach of the barrier would directly affect those areas.

The CDZ runs from Daisy Lake to a point approximately 3 kilometres south of the dam near the salt sheds, and up to the barrier through Rubble Creek Valley.

Rafting companies still used the river through the 1980s and ’90s, but because of the irregular flow from the Daisy Lake Dam, water levels were inconsistent. B.C. Hydro started to release a steadier flow of water for environmental reasons in 1998, and that summer more than 10,000 tourists did the Cheakamus River run through six different rafting companies.

Prior to 1998, the Registrar of Rafting at the Ministry of Environment issued permits to rafting companies, but according to the Ministry of the Attorney General, that was a mistake.

"The legislation has been in place for 20 years, and what happened was, by error, a couple of years ago there were some rafting licenses issued which were withdrawn when the Registrar of Rafting found out that there was a provincial regulation precluding both commercial activities and surface water activities in the designated area," says Wayne Duphinee of the Ministry of the Attorney General, Provincial Emergency Program.

Since the licenses were rescinded, local rafting companies – led by Sadan – have attempted to garner support from the provincial government to reopen the Cheakamus to commercial rafting.

West Vancouver-Garibaldi MLA Ted Nebbeling is sympathetic with the rafting companies, and has approached people at various levels of government to see if there was any possibility of temporarily lifting the ban on rafting the Cheakamus. He said it doesn’t look good for this season.

"If (the authorities) feel it’s wrong, I can’t force them to say that it’s right," says Nebbeling.

He adds he is hoping for a review of the criteria used to determine the safety of the area. "If it’s safe for a bus to drive the highway, why is it not safe for a raft?" Nebbeling asks.

But further reviews may have already been done. A second geologic study and a land use plan for the area were put together over the past year to determine exactly what the risks and opportunities are concerning the Barrier. Rafting companies were optimistic that the study and the land use plan would come out in favour of reopening the river.

"Obviously since (the closure) we’ve been campaigning to try and reopen the river," says Sadan. "The conversations I had with government were pretty encouraging, and we thought initially that the (land use plan) was a breakthrough in reviewing this old archaic legislation.

"But obviously they feel (the hazard) is so extreme that they don’t want river rafters going through there. You’d think that should have an effect on the road traffic through there. There’s a lot of people going in and out of that disaster zone, on the highway, on the railway. If the Barrier gave way and this huge avalanche came down, river rafters would probably be a footnote in the whole story."

The most recent study just reaffirmed the conclusions reached in the first survey: The Barrier could collapse at any moment, causing a debris flow that has the potential to cause a wave to break over the dam and flood the river. The highway, rail line, B.C. Hydro lines, and recreation users are still at risk, although the level of risk varies with your position in relation to Rubble Creek canyon and the CDZ.

"The hiking trails, for the most part, are in an area of low to negligible hazard," explains Dauphinee. "They are on the sides of the canyon where the creek comes down. The creek is like a funnel and the Cheakamus is at the bottom. It’s like taking a bag of manure and dropping it off a 10-storey building – it doesn’t really affect anything on either side of it as it falls, but when it hits the ground it, well, spreads."

The Land Use Plan for the Garibaldi CDZ is almost complete and it is currently being reviewed by the Ministry of the Attorney General and other affected government ministries and agencies.

Marnie Skobalski of Gryphus Land Use Planning Corp., the independent contractor hired to put together the land use plan, says the government will be ready to host an open house on the plan within the next six weeks.

Although she can’t divulge what is in the plan, she says that the findings of the most recent geological study are adequate grounds to keep rafters off the Cheakamus.

"Studies by engineers and geologist have indicated that The Barrier can give way at any time, and that it has given way in the past. A slide could travel maybe six and a half kilometres, so it can go quite a ways," says Skobalski. "We’ve had another study done of the hazard, and it indicated once again that the Cheakamus River is not safe for rafting."

Skobalski believes the present location of the highway and railway is "not the ideal situation," but says there’s a difference between passing through the danger zone and bringing people to it. Even recreational users, while at risk, are ushered through the danger zone as quickly as possible.

"You go to the parking lot, get your gear and move out. There’s no picnic tables, no overnight camping is allowed. Within a few minutes, they get up the trail and to a high enough elevation that they’re out of what most likely is the slide path," says Skobalski.

"The thing is, maybe the Barrier won’t give way for a hundred years, 500 years, or even 2,000 years, but maybe it could give way this afternoon."

According to Skobalski, there is evidence that the most recent slide took place less than 150 years ago.

"In 1858, there were some explorers going through the area, and they could see this massive slide devastation at the base of the Rubble Creek Valley. They talked to some of the natives that lived in the area, and were told that a massive slide came down from the Barrier three years before, in 1855. They analyzed it further and determined that it travelled at least six and a half kilometres. It partly blocked the Cheakamus and created Daisy Lake and Shadow Lake.

"It’s happened before, and geologists and scientists believe it could happen again."

While Skobalski acknowledges that the number of rafters using the Cheakamus would be minor in relation to the number of people using the highway or railway, she says that the idea is to limit the number of people in the danger area at any given time, and to shorten their stay as much as possible.

Giving rafting the green light would inevitably mean giving other kinds of commercial tour operators the green light to operate in the area, and that would significantly increase the number of people in the CDZ.

Sadan says that river rafters are generally adventurous people who wouldn’t be turned off by the threat posed by the Barrier. Signed waivers would relieve the government of any responsibility if an accident were to occur.

"Considering the heavy usage in that corridor, the double standard here is outrageous," he says. "This being a low snowpack and water year, we are relying on the Cheakamus River."

Brian Leighton of Whistler River Adventures says it hurt to lose the Cheakamus, and he is behind Sadan in the effort to have the area reopened.

"It’s a shorter trip, and the rivers that we run, the smaller rivers anyway, they can run out in early August, so the Cheakamus is a great August alternative," says Leighton. "It certainly took the place of the Green and the Birkenhead, which are sort of our staple longer trips.

"The most recent report I saw wasn’t very encouraging, so I’m not holding up a lot of hope."