Part of the popular promenade likely to stay closed through summer after recent rain brings down more rubble
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
A two-kilometre stretch of the storm-damaged Stanley Park Seawall will remain closed until at least sometime in August after heavy rains last week triggered a second major landslide on the escarpment between Siwash Rock and Prospect Point.
About 50 metres of the seawall were covered with rubble, adding to the already daunting excavation and repair work required on the 10-kilometre promenade.
"The new pile is three metres high and topped with uprooted trees," said Paul Lawson, Stanley Park restoration manager. "It would fill four or five gravel trucks."
"Every time it rains, more debris falls," he said.
Winter storms and typhoon-force winds have knocked down 10,000 trees in 40 hectares of the park since late November, causing $9 million in damage, closing many of the trails and inflicting heavy damage on the seawall.
Last week's slide was the second major one since mid-December, after a storm uprooted nearly every tree on the steep slopes above the seawall in the area around Prospect Point.
Several kilometres of the walking and cycling path remain closed between Third Beach and Lions Gate Bridge. Pounding surf has undermined much of the seawall as far south as Third Beach and a dozen smaller slides have dumped rock and soil on the surface.
Unstable soil could delay the start of any efforts to remove the debris and begin rebuilding the seawall.
"Without even bringing in heavy machinery, the slope keeps coming down," said Stanley District manager Jim Lowden.
Before work can start, the broken and uprooted trees have to be removed and the soil above the seawall must either be secured or the hillside scraped down to bare rock.
Another bout of heavy rain will further delay work, as heavy machines required to remove the loose soil and downed trees cannot safely work close to the top edge of the slide area until the ground is dry and cohesive.
"My best guess is that [the seawall] won't be open before the end of August or September," Lowden said.
The park is the city's single biggest tourist draw, attracting 8.5 million visitors every year.
Signs warn visitors not to proceed any further along Stanley Park Seawall.
Photograph by : Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
The good news for people itching to get back into the park is that nearly every trail will be open for Easter weekend -- with the exception of the areas of heavy wind damage around Prospect Point.
Trails between Park Drive and the beach will remain closed indefinitely, said Lowden.
"Parts of Siwash Rock Trail just aren't even there; the rootballs that were torn up took part of it and the rain has washed away the rest," Lowden said.
The park board is expected to approve the $9-million restoration plan for the park at its April 16 meeting.
MORE TROUBLE FOR STANLEY PARK'S FAMOUS SEAWALL: Map shows area of the seawall closure and alternate routes for those wanting to circumnavigate the park on foot. Slide area is shown below.
Photograph by : Mark Van Manen, Vancouver Sun
"That will give us the green light to really get rolling with the cleanup," Lowden said. "Up to now we've been doing background stuff, taking down dangerous trees and updating our survey of the known native archeological sites in the park."
Park board officials met with members of the Archaeological Society of B.C. to discuss the implications for ancient native settlements of the park cleanup and restoration, according to society president Eric McLay.
Consulting firm Golder Associates has been contracted to create an overview of the park's known archeological sites and culturally modified trees, mostly old cedars that show signs of bark harvesting.
Several partial surveys and inventories have been completed over the years, McLay said, but they are mainly site-specific reports related to park infrastructure and road-building and almost exclusively on the east side of the park. The west side of the park is virtually unsurveyed and represents a major hole in the park board's knowledge base.
"It would be better to have that detailed survey done than to find something significant when you go to build something," McLay said. "Then it becomes an exercise in crisis management."
The ASBC has offered to have an archeologist join the restoration steering committee to help interpret archeological reports.
The board has also contracted a biologist to map environmentally sensitive areas and to identify habitat areas for animal species at risk that are known to be in the park, Lowden said.
"What it all means is that when we get the green light, we won't have anyone stepping in front of the machines and saying 'No you can't,'" Lowden said.
rshore@png.canwest.com
Invasive species
Stanley Park is marketed as a natural forest oasis in the heart of Vancouver. But sociologist Renisa Mawani tells a slightly different story of the park and its history.
"Stanley Park is a largely manufactured environment," said Mawani, who will speak on the cultural and colonial history of the park at 6 p.m. Thursday, at UBC Robson Square.
"The books and pamphlets about the park don't talk about the native settlements and the eviction of the Coast Salish people from their homes and communities in the park," she said Monday.
"Archival maps and documents show that native people lived in the park even after it became a park," she explained. "So they were removed and we can get a sense of how that took place by looking at the history."
Even worse, the totem poles at Brockton Point are not the work of the people who lived in and around the park for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, but are imported from other native cultures -- what Mawani calls the "erasure" of the local indigenous culture.
Using the metaphor of English ivy -- an invasive foreign species that has overwhelmed indigenous plants in the Lower Mainland -- Mawani will explore the stories of the people who have called the park home over the centuries and some of the political implications of recognizing the native history of a community asset that is subject to multiple land claims.
Onlookers view some of the large trees that slid down onto Stanley Park Seawall, just west of Prospect Point.
Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
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