A Clear Lake cruise operator is seeking financial compensation from Parks Canada to keep his company alive after the season was wiped out by efforts to contain invasive zebra mussels.
Kelsey Connor, president of the Clear Lake Marina, said his business has incurred “significant damages” since pleasure watercraft were banned in May and the Martese tour boat was forced to stop operating in July.
“We simply will close. We can’t exist unless we’re operating,” Connor said Tuesday. “The damages we are suffering are not sustainable.”
Kelsey Connor asked Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault to hold Parks Canada accountable for “collateral damage” to his company, Clear Lake Marina. (Tim Smith / The Brandon Sun files)
Connor, who took over the company in 2015, sent letters to Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, who oversees Parks Canada, and other federal officials this week.
Connor asked Guilbeault to hold Parks Canada accountable for “collateral damage” to his company, which has a licence of occupation in Riding Mountain National Park, and operates at the main pier in Wasagaming.
Unlike other businesses in the western Manitoba park, “100 per cent” of the marina’s revenue and livelihood is at stake, Connor wrote.
The letter said park management denied fiscal responsibility and compensation “for its crippling and potential ruin” of the company, which attempted to mitigate its losses this summer.
“We are well established, highly reputed and desire to play a significant role in the same or an increased capacity for the foreseeable future,” Connor wrote. “Conversely, Parks Canada’s repudiation of our sustenance and failure to provide us with any security only directs us down a path to permanent closure.”
He told the Free Press that Clear Lake Marina supports efforts to protect the lake and the park. He said the situation is difficult to navigate, because he has strong relationships with local Parks Canada officials.
“I love this place, and I want to be part of its future,” said Connor, who started working for Clear Lake Marina when he was a high school student in 2005. “We want to be a part of that long-term solution.”
Parks Canada has described the watercraft ban as temporary. There is no indication of when it could be lifted.
In a typical summer, Clear Lake Marina employs 25 people, mostly students, while operating cruises and renting out watercraft, including motor boats and kayaks, and e-bikes.
This summer, the business employed 10 people, said Connor.
Parks Canada has faced questions over its containment efforts, after an underwater curtain failed two days after it was installed by a private contractor in early August.
The roughly two-kilometre-long curtain, set up in the Boat Cove area of the lake, was dislodged by wind and waves.
The waterproof membrane, which is set to be removed by the contractor, did not remain anchored to the lake bed as expected, and some pieces disconnected from each other, according to Parks Canada.
The agency said monitoring will continue and help to determine whether potash, a molluscicide approved for use by Health Canada, can be used to potentially eradicate or control zebra mussels in the lake.
In June, Parks Canada awarded a five-month contract to Ontario-based ASI Group Ltd. to install the curtain and possibly use potash to kill zebra mussels.
Parks Canada spokeswoman Mireille Kroeker said the cost of the curtain and installation was $843,886.
She said the agency “solicited proposals and selected the best containment curtain option through a competitive process.”
“Parks Canada continues to explore all options to mitigate potential impacts to the community based on strong cost vs. benefit analysis,” Kroeker wrote in an email.
ASI Group did not respond to a request for comment.
A clump of 48 live zebra mussels was found in Boat Cove in November — the first discovery of its kind in Riding Mountain.
All pleasure watercraft were later banned to help battle a suspected invasion. The curtain was installed Aug. 6, following the discoveries of an adult zebra mussel and environmental DNA from the mollusks.
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching
Reporter
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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