Williams Lake City Council will be taking another crack at being able to use it’s lake harvester.
The City only managed to cut a small portion back in 2021, which led to applications for different permits to cover the whole lake, but reports never came back in their favour.
Another application was sent in June of 2023 to work on the same area for more documentation, but the Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship said to come back with an updated management plan and new report, which would cost the City roughly $15,000.
Director of Municipal Services, Rob Warnock says they look to speak with other levels of government to avoid those costs.
“More support to convince the ministry this is a good thing to do, and we follow all their rules they gave us.” says Warnock.
“We did the training, we had the biologist on the first day just to teach us how to deal if we picked up a turtle and what to do with it.”
Warnock says it would be up to Council to decide if they want to sell the harvester or not, if they fail to get support or convince the ministry.
City Council decided that they will work on getting support from both the North Central Local Government Association and Union of BC Municipalities.
As to when the City looks to hopefully get back on track with the harvester, Warnock says it depends on Councillors going to outside agencies, which will be in May and September, but noted we may not get it this year, but rather next year.