Dear editor,
Re: Lazo Road Shoreline Restoration Project
Once more, instead of providing leadership in shoreline restoration, Comox has imposed the easy and expensive way out.
The Town commissioned a report, created a proposal and drawings, got funding, offered an open house and then told citizens what would happen. There was no room for community involvement in this process.
This project talks about shoreline restoration along approximately 640 metres of Lazo Road, but there is no restoration. The report dismisses soft engineering as a non-alternative: the Town’s preference is for lower maintenance (rip rap) versus bio-engineering that requires routine maintenance. The soft approach would cost about $600,000 less. That surplus would pay for a lot of maintenance and taxpayers would have a ‘Green Shore’ to look at. Lazo Road is an opportunity for Comox to create a model beach restoration. “Green Shores for Homes,” cites examples of bio-engineering along North American beaches and uses Lantzville and Victoria examples. Why can Comox not create Green Shores?
Residents walking this stretch of beach are now going to see 640 metres of rip rap, not beach. As the gentleman at the Open House put so succinctly, “UGLY!”
Lazo Road beach needs restoration and shoreline protection but this ‘one solution fits all’ does not apply in this area. As the report notes: almost half of the project has little to no erosion.
J.T. Titus, once said, “In the next century, the majority of America’s shorelines could be replaced by a wall – not because anyone decided that this should happen, but because no one decided that it should not.”
I’m on the large list of those residents who say it should not.
Judy Morrison
Comox