Nanoose Bay Dock and Styrofoam Removal

Nanoose Bay Dock and Styrofoam Removal. Update 2008/09


The following week the size of the project of trying to remove all the docks without machinery became evident when a local resident Harold Robinson donated some machine time with his son Corey as operator. With the excavator we removed all the dock sections along the south side of the estuary and as far as we had easy access along the south shore below the railroad tracks.

All these docks were sent to the west coast for re-building and re-use. The following week another local contractor (Shoreline) with owner Doug Penny as operator donated time to remove the sections along the North shoreline around to the Oyster farm. These also went for recycling.

Meanwhile the NSKS volunteers plugged away relentlessly with other residents to remove the loose Styrofoam. A gas leaf blower which converted to a vacuum was modified by Roy for sucking up the loose particles without taking in sticks and rocks. Another 100 cubic meters of foam or more was removed by hand. DBL, a local container company, donated a truck to haul away the foam to another dock construction company (White-Water Docks) for recycling.

During this process we had made contact with the main landowner in the bay, the Nanoose Naval Base. They allowed us to access the beaches all along the north shore and one of the smaller islands near Wallis Point. During our Styrofoam removal the navy came by with their Sea Truck to pick up the foam we had collected.

Thanks to the continuing lobbying by residents and NSKS the Federal Government via Environment Canada donated money to help facilitate the cleanup and shortly after the Provincial Government came on board with a donation. Now we had the money to hire machinery and man power to do the job.

Over the summer as time and tides permitted machinery and trucks were hired to remove more dock sections, a local Oyster farmer Pete Mclean was hired to tow the sections off the beach once the machine had lifted them from the foreshore. Next, dock sections were hand removed with jacks and rollers to allow the towing off the beach at high tide in areas not accessible to machinery. All these pieces were trucked to a storage site on Snaw'Naw'As First Nations land where some are being dismantled.

Hopefully someone will want the docks that are able to be repaired and re-used. As of this posting some docks still remain at the high tide line driven into the foreshore by the storms and will also require hand removal over the coming months once the herring have spawned and its okay to work in these sensitive areas.