British Columbia has gone mad
A new law is being introduced which is similar to many around North America but with enough of a twist to make the whole issue absurd. First we can not dump "raw" sewage basically anywhere along the Inside Passage of coastal BC. At first this may seem reasonable, but there are very very few dump stations, so there is no where to go. For example, my home marina in Horseshoe Bay (where the ferries leave for mid-Vancouver Island) has no dump station. You are expected to keep a log of every where you dump, you must include your position. So if I go for a sail in Howe Sound, I can't dump my tanks (of which I do not own) at a dump station. Now to get more absurd, Victoria BC dumps raw sewage into the ocean daily. What Victoria dumps in a day is about what all boaters in BC would dump in ten years or more. I see this law much like I see the "no dogs allowed" sign at Horseshoe Bay. At the one little park where everyone congregates while waiting for their Ferry to come in, no dogs are allowed but as you can guess, every day there must be more than a hundred dogs in the park over the course of a daily BC Ferry schedule. In my mind, if a law isn't logical and relevant, it doesn't get enforced. The Coast Guard is suppose to come on board and they can ask to see your log of where you have dumped your goodies, and of course you are suppose to show it to them. However with few places to dump, and the Coast Guard knowing this, this law is going to end up like the non-enforced "no dogs allowed" in the park non-response at Horseshoe Bay. Needless to say, boating organizations and mags such as Pacific Yachting are lobbying against this bureaucratic twisted thinking. Now this may sound like I'm against holding tanks, etc; I'm not, but if you want garbage dumped in the garbage cans, you'd better provide the cans.
