To The Editor: Restoring the Estuary is an Option

(This letter was sent to the AVNews on July 25, 2021)

Dear Editor,

There is a lot of talk of what might come of the WFP lands if they are expropriated. What if they went back to their original purpose?

There are amazing photos (courtesy Alberni Valley Museum) of the harbour just after the E&N railway was completed long before the mill. In one, a photographer is standing just to the side of the tracks. In the distance, two men walk on the tracks toward 3rd avenue hill, the railway meanders along the shoreline toward the Carmoor block and Argyle pier. In the foreground, the tracks are on a causeway with a flat, muddy shoreline on the right that might be at high tide. There is a marshy lagoon to the left. Another photo shows a similar view but on the harbour side of the railway, presumably at low tide. The photographer is surrounded by grasses and marsh land in the Dry Creek estuary.

Imagine all the benefits that would come from restoring that even a portion of that estuary.

Chris Alemany