KELOWNA – A group of local residents determined to see beach access restored has announced plans for a second beach protest and with local voters picking a new mayor and council this fall, they are determined to make the right to walk the beach on Okanagan Lake an election issue.

“There’s no better time to put some pressure on them than when they're facing re-election,” PLANKelowna spokesman Al Janusas said. “Maybe they’ll listen this time.”

Janusas and local realtor Brenda Bachmann were the driving force behind last year’s Walk the Beach which saw several hundred protestors try to follow the foreshore from the Bennett Bridge to Boyce-Gyro beach.

Their aim was to show how over the years, the high-water mark has been compromised by lakeshore property owners who have constructed often illegal docks and retaining walls into the lake without allowing for public access, which is guaranteed by provincial law.

In other cases, vegetation has been allowed to overgrow the high-water mark, in some cases deliberately, to impede public access.

Janusas said previous talks with city bureaucrats and Kelowna councillors have proven fruitless, with the claim that beach access is beyond their jurisdiction, lying instead with the Ministry of Natural Resources.

The 2018 Walk the Beach protest goes ahead Sunday, August 26 at 1 p.m. from City Park.

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