For five years, plans have been underway to dismantle Lac La Biche’s decrepit wooden Big Dock, located in Lac La Biche lake, and to update the lakeshore with a new dock—along with a future plan for a marina and lakeshore redesign all the way to McArthur Park.
The first step however—dismantling the old dock, which is full of holes and rotting wood—has proved to be a monumental task for the Big Dock Preservation Society, the group in charge of the project, who have been navigating between the opposing demands of three government agencies. But it appears that this first step towards the dream of a modern lakeshore development may about to be taken, after years of effort.
Lac La Biche County mayor and member of the Big Dock Society Aurel Langevin says that while permission to remove the old dock has stalled time and again because of the concerns of Sustainable Resource Development, Fisheries and Oceans and Navigable Waters, he has received word that final approval from SRD is imminent, and the dismantling of the old dock may proceed as scheduled this winter.
“The next step would be going out and tendering for contractors for removal,” Langevin said. “The contractor would go in there, remove the timbers and the big rocks, called rip rap, inside the dock that keep the ice from pushing it away in winter. The timber will have to be disposed of, but the rock can be reused in the new construction.”
Once the old dock has been removed, the next hurdle will be obtaining permission from all three government agencies in order to get construction of any new structures under way.
“Once the dock is removed, there will be some permitting involved—there will still be red tape in building simply because we will be changing the footprint,” Langevin said, adding that satisfying the requirements of all three government agencies has proved difficult. “It is hard to satisfy the requirements of federal departments who may have competing interests. On the one hand, you’ve got somebody who wants to have rip rap in the bottom of the lake for fish spawning, on the other hand you have a government agency [Navigable Waters] that says we don’t want big rocks in the lake, they will damage boats. It can be tough to satisfy both. It can make it rather difficult to get something done.”
Still, Langevin is pleased with the progress reported by the Big Dock Society and looks forward to removing the old dock that is in disrepair, and, ultimately, work towards a project that will improve life for residents of Lac La Biche.
“This is a project that will benefit the community dramatically. It’s a good thing for the county,” he said before congratulating the hard work of the society. “The committee has worked very diligently for the last five years to come to this point.”
