Sunday, August 25, 2013

Save the Colliery Lakes

I went to the dam picnic today.  Saying "dam" to tune people in to what I am talking about has to be the most efficient and fun thing about this issue.  There really isn't much else about it that I think is particularly funny, efficient or interesting - dam dam dam. :)

I had a good hot dog, one of those big ones like at Costco & cake-lovely chocolate cake with the white icing, not too sweet.  After hiking up Mt Benson with nothing but half a chocolate bar for lunch I was prepared to buy & wear any t-shirt and sign any petition to get into this picnic.  No such opportunity or requirement - just enjoy the moment, welcome to Colliery

It was nice.  a nice gathering of nice people with dogs, kids and food - i missed the corn, it looked real good.

I met Jeff Soloman, he & I had talked on the phone recently about another issue but we had never met - nice guy.  Dale who I took to be another main man, same thing- nice people.  Where was all the raucus, Klu Klux Klan stuff I had heard about - not a sign, no signs in fact - how can you have a protest with no signs.

Ok, so it would appear to me that all the disruptive, bad manners that I've heard about with respect to this issue seems to have been contained within the Nanaimo City Council Chambers - hmmm, more on that point later, for now this group works for me - I am a sissy.

SO  the best part...   Ron Bolin was having a chat on a bench under a shady tree when I finished desert and wandered over,  Gord Fuller and his two dogs (one was a loaner) stopped by also.  I'm fishing for input on what the fuss is all about asking if its about saving the "park" or saving the "dam" I am trying to buy a T-shirt with something like that on it.  Ron drops the perfect line - "the t-shirts should say "save the Colliery Lakes".

"Save the Colliery Lakes",  Save the "Lakes"  the "lakes" is what this is all about,  the damn lakes (excuse me that was a real one )

Ok, lets look at what we are actually doing.  We are sitting on the dam. We gazing out at the lake, we are watching swimmers/boaters in the lake.  We are enjoying the breeze off the lake.  Who cares about the dam dam, its the dam lake that counts.

Has anyone considered Ron's idea of saving the "lakes", just the dam "lakes".  

Would it make everyone happy if we could keep the Colliery lakes?  

Would it be ok to stop swearing so much?  Could we just take the dam out of the conversation? 






3 comments:

  1. Thanks for stopping by the picnic Jim. The Colliery Dam Preservation Society name evolved to include the word Park. The Park includes the forest; trails, upper Chase River, lakes and dams. Our group supports the least intrusive modifications to the park to address the 'some believe to be' hugely over stated risks . Since the dams had been falsely identified as the most dangerous dams in BC, dispite having repeatedly been assessed as having NO problems beside a recommendations to increase the spillways back in 2002.

    Indeed the lakes are the centerpiece of the park! It's great to point that out, though I would never call them damn lakes, we always lovingly refered to the entire park as "the dams" for without those 100+ year old dams which once served as drinking water reservoirs perhaps there would never have been a park at all or such a tightly woven community by the name of Harewood for that matter.

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  2. Dam that's good!!!

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  3. This is a dam good artical!!

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