Editor:
I’ve worked most of my life on the coast of B.C. and it seems every waterfront community has similar problems with abandoned vessels. As social and environmental problems go, it is probably more of an irritant than anything else – but I would like to see the press and the politicians differentiate between the abandoned vessels and the live-aboard boats. The abandoned vessels invariably are boats that, when approaching the end of their useful life, have been dumped on the community. The people who do this are similar to people who throw their garbage on the side of the road or drive their defunct fridge and couch up a logging road to get rid of it.
The live-aboard people are invariably people with little or no income. Rather than sleep on the streets as so many have been forced to do, they have somehow got their hands on an old, usually decrepit, vessel. They have made this their home with all the attendant discomfort that living on a ratty old boat on the coast of B.C. in the winter entails. But the point is that they are taking care of themselves, they are not taking up social housing, they are not sleeping on the street.
The possibility of these vessels sinking is a real problem, but offering help with good moorings and adequate bilge pumps might turn out to be a lot less expensive than driving the people out of their homes and onto the streets.
As for the abandoned vessels, there appears to be no easy governmental solution because of budget concerns, etc., but as the people at Granthams Landing demonstrated, the problem is easily solved by a half dozen good men, a few dollars, and a couple of chainsaws. But I suppose that is too easy.
Peter Heiberg, Gibsons
