March 24, 2005

Politician says housing causes sewage problems

KAMLOOPS, B.C.

A regional politician wants a crackdown on a new housing development in a bid to stop sewage from being flushed into Shuswap Lake.

Even as a developer is finalizing plans to build as many as 100 new condominiums on the lake’s south shore, Ted Bacigalupo, with the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District board, is calling for a ban on sewage discharge.

Bacigalupo said Monday the lake is already under too much pressure from failing septic systems and other sewage disposal systems that dump waste into the river.

It’s turning the recreational lake into a cesspool, while development pressures continue to rise, he said.

Okanagan Lake and Christina Lake have been designated provincially as effluent-free, except for municipally treated discharge. He wants the same for the Shuswap.

“What we have in the Shuswap is a proliferation of development, particularly on the North Shuswap, where the province is entertaining applications left and right,’’ he said.

The Canadian Press

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