A well-known resort in the Okanagan is on the hook for thousands in provincial fines.
And the government says the resort, which was mostly destroyed by wildfire last year, has yet to pay up.
In January, the province’s Environmental Appeal Board fined the company that owns Lake Okanagan Resort $47,870 for repeatedly failing to achieve wastewater treatment and effluent disposal compliance, aka sewage practices.
The decision, a 34-page document that’s available online, said the fines to 1782 Holdings Ltd. were issued under B.C.’s Environmental Management Act.
The decision also noted that 1782 Holdings purchased the resort in 2014, though sewage issues had been documented before the business changed owners.
Still, in the years that followed, the report said officials brought up the resort’s failing sewage system, but that nothing was really done to permanently remedy the issue.
According to the report, the resort can discharge wastewater into the ground, but in 2013, the permit to do so was amended, and the business needed to decrease “the concentration of total nitrogen and phosphorus in the discharge wastewater.”
Right beside the resort is an area that’s considered a high habitat area for spawning kokanee fish.
The upgrade was to have been done by 2014, but it was not “and the concentration limits by the permit have been repeatedly exceeded by significant amounts.”
Two years later, in 2016, 1782 Holdings — also called the appellant in the document — proposed using a temporary wastewater treatment plant for two months.
“The appellant proposed the use of a temporary wastewater treatment plant for a period of two months to address what the appellant’s qualified professional described as an “imminent failure” of wastewater treatment at the lakeview facility and the appellant proposed the design and construction of a permanent replacement works, which were to be operational before the end of 2016.”
Those two months stretched into years until the resort was ravaged in last year’s McDougall Creek wildfire.
The report also mentioned a broken pressurized sewer pipe, multiple requests to address the situation, the appellant’s attempt to blame delays on COVID-19, and the fact that the appellant didn’t dispute the contraventions but the fine amounts.
The resort had timeshare options, and according to one timeshare website, those who bought in are in a difficult situation.
Global News has reached out to Lake Okanagan Resort.
The Ministry of Environment says it invoiced the company on Jan. 17, 2024, for $47,870, and that payment was due on Feb. 16, 2024.
“On May 22, 2024, it remained unpaid and was referred to collections,” the ministry said in an email to Global News on July 8. “The payment remains outstanding.”