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Diana Lake Provincial Park clean up underway

Port Edward District spearheaded the park clean up securing $80,000 in funds from Ridley Terminal
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Five to six years of log accumulation at Diana Lake Provincial Park is currently being cleaned up by a District of Port Edward and Parks BC partnership. (Photo: Supplied by District of Port Edward)

An major clean-up of Diana Lake to remove logs and debris which have accumulated and built up is underway, the District of Port Edward announced on Dec. 2.

The clean-up has been in the planning for more than year with $80,000 in funding for the project provided by Ridley Terminals under a partnership between the Port Edward District and BC Parks.

“The District of Port Edward took some leadership, staff and council secured (funds) from Ridley to support clean up and sight improvements,” Danielle Myles-Wilson chief administrative officer for the District of Port Edward said.

With not a lot of beach space around the area, it is an important beach for the community, Knut Bjorndal Mayor of Port Edward told the The Northern View

“The park is a very important asset to this region. Port Edward council has long supported the upgrade of Diana Lake,” Bjorndal said.

“We leveraged some resources and worked with BC Parks to encourage the clean up project. They were happy to do so and have been project managing it. They went out an looked for contracts who have been cleaning it up.”

There is a lot of material, logs and debris that needs to be taken care of and removed.

”From what I understand the accumulation is from five or six years of logs piling up near the beach. The log problem is due to when the reservoir flooded and it wasn’t logged. So, there are a lot of logs coming up and off the banks,” Myers-Wilson said.

The City of Prince Rupert is responsible for the dam maintenance and is supporting the clean up by assisting with the debris removal and tidying up the wooded section, while the lake and park fall under the Port Edward area boundaries but are actually a provincial park.

“The challenging factor was how we would work together to make it happen. It took a while to figure out the details and start the clean up in collaboration with each other,” Myles-Wilson said.

Myles-Wilson said the results of this clean up are an example to be followed in the future and set a standard.

“The District of Port Edward wants to work very closely with BC Parks to ensure the site is maintained in the future. The public keep telling us it is an important site. It’s a beautiful beach and a lot of families want to use. It needs to be maintained to a better standard,” she said.

The park is currently gated and closed for the season. It will re-open in it’s cleaned up state for family and public use in the spring when the season opens.


 K-J Millar | Journalist 
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