5 replies to this topic

[SamCB]

I've had this idea since I moved here from Toronto in 2006.

Toronto has Tommy Thompson Park - unofficially known as the Leslie Street Spit. It's a 5km long (and growing) artificial headland and bird sanctuary created by dumping the city's clean fill into Lake Ontario. It's mostly old brick and clay.

 

It's an unbelievably cool place, not far from the city centre. It's a birdwatching mecca and there are dozens of garbage trucks coming and going all day.

 

Victoria (or any other municipality in the CRD) should create an artificial wilderness sanctuary in the same vein. Redirect all "clean fill" bricks, rock and soil to one location in the CRD. Put geo-engineers and environmentalists on the design panel, and make a new, and very cool park. 

 

I understand the ocean is under Federal jurisdiction, and we don't have nearly as much material to contribute as Toronto, but I still like the idea.

 

Here are some pics of Toronto's.

 

[amor de cosmos]

Ross Bay might have been a good place for that years ago

[Nparker]

Best of luck getting the local eco-freaks on board with this.

[Barra]

It will really change the way nearby beaches are " built" ( naturally)
We already have these at Esquimalt lagoon and Whiffen Spit.

[jklymak]

People don't seem to appreciate how deep the water is here.  Lake Ontario south of Toronto is 10 m deep for a few miles offshore.  In most of the shore here, the water is deeper than 10 m a stone's throw away.  

[Bernard]

Building new spits or breakwaters is regularly done in BC, there is no reason it could not be done.

 

In BC the ocean water is Fed jurisdiction but the sea bed is provincial but the zoning would be local.  You need to work with all three levels of government.

 

The feds would require an environmental assessment, but it is not at all what you think it is, it is little more than a form you fill out.  A provincial environmental assessment is triggered based on the size of the project.   The scale of a new spit would be large enough to trigger.a BC environmental assessment and this is a serious and expensive review.   The Feds might then choose to create their own joint panel on the project to trump the BC EA process.  The Fed Joint Panel process is a much weaker and more political process than the BC one.

 

So legally there is no reason it could not be done.  

 

Logistically, that is something else