Image Credit: Evan and Doug West

By Adam Donnelly

STUMP LAKE

Retired fisheries biologist calls on government to protect Stump Lake water levels

Jul 2, 2020 | 5:25 PM

KAMLOOPS — As Stump Lake continues to rise, residents who live on the lake continue to battle rain and wind in a last-ditch effort to save their homes.

Now a retired provincial fisheries biologist has waded into the controversy, penning a letter to media and the province,. It states the lake has “filled to its natural level” and says draining it would harm “one of the most vibrant, productive environments in the province.” The letter isn’t sitting well with at least two residents who are working day and night to save their home.

“We sit here at breakfast crying like babies, wondering what the hell we’re going to do,” said frustrated resident Devon Nickle.

He and his wife Debbie have spent several months filling sandbags to save their home on Stump Lake. “We’re bringing in rock and sand,” Devon explains. “I bet you we’re at 30,000 sandbags.”

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The couple bought the lot in 2002, unaware it was part of the lake basin, and with assurances, the water would never rise high enough to threaten their home.

According to a letter written by Steve Maricle, a retired provincial fisheries biologist who is now a fly fishing guide, he and his colleagues believed something like this would happen one day.

“Back in the mid-70’s we objected to what they called high water at that time,” Maricle explains. “They looked at vegetation changes and said ‘okay, this is the high watermark.'”

Maricle sent the letter to the province and local media on June 24th, explaining that Stump Lake’s natural water level is capable of significant fluctuations.

“It’s a lake of two stories,” Maricle says. “When that lake is high, it is the best fishing lake in this region. One of the best fishing lakes in this province. When the lake is low, the salt content goes up, the pH goes up, and it becomes an aquatic wasteland.”

The Nickles’ read Maricle’s letter and took issue with some of the language used to describe their situation. “They’re calling [my house] these ‘structures on the lake.’ This is my home,” Debbie Nickle says.

“You tell me you take this down two feet, and it’s still eight, ten feet higher than it’s ever been that it’s going to be detrimental to the fishery?” Devon Nickle said as he looked out over his flooded yard. “Are you kidding me?”

However, the Nickles’ agree one thing; Maricle believes whoever issued the building permits for the lots should be held accountable for that lack of foresight.

“In my opinion, the onus is on the people who permitted them build at that level,” Maricle says. “If they’ve got permits to build at the level they’ve built at and they are flooding, they should have never built at that level.

That would mean compensating landowners like the Nickles’ whose lives have been turned upside down.

“Then I could get out of this mess somehow,” Devon says. “Buy a little apartment, possibly. I mean, right now, we would live in a shack, just to get out of this.”