It’s become a ritual for bylaw officer Lesley Elchuk: she drives to the Alouette River every week to take pictures of the sunken barge sitting in the waters off the north shoreline.

And every week Elchuk sends the photos of the eyesore to the Integrated Land Management Bureau of the B.C. Ministry of Forest and Range.

But she’s hoping her ritual ends in August, the city’s deadline for barge owner Ralph Rietel to clean up the area.

“Ultimately we want it gone,” said Elchuk, of the barge that sprung a leak last summer and began to sink.

“We’re trying to help the owner by doing what we can. He does seem co-operative. He said he’s going to work at it … dismantle the building and raise the barge.”

And Rietel is co-operating, but he said reaching the mid-August deadline doesn’t look feasible, based on his health, finances, the depth of the water and the massive task ahead of him.

“I told the city, ‘If you want me to do something about it, either A … you deal with it, or B… stay out of it,’ ” he said.

But neither of those options are good for the city: it would cost thousands of dollars to raise the barge, dismantle it and clean up the property. Despite the barge being on the water, and thus out of its jurisdiction, it’s still an issue that concerns the municipality.

Elchuk said the City of Pitt Meadows has been receiving complaints since 2005, when the barge first appeared.

But Rietel said he got lots of support from passers-by when he was constructing his home on top of the barge.

“It was never my intention to live here in this area on the barge. It was always my plan to move it up the coast.”

But since the barge began sinking last summer, Elchuk said the complaints have been steadier and the concerns have grown.

An old Volkswagen van that was once sitting on the barge above the water was last week partially submerged. Elchuk worries that oil or gas is spilling from the vehicle into the river.

Bob Cunneyworth, compliance and enforcement specialist with the ILMB, said the environmental concern complicates the problem.

“We certainly don’t want to see any oil leaking into the river,” said Cunneyworth.

“Nothing about this is a simple solution ... because of the overlapping jurisdictions. But my understanding is that Environment Canada and the Conservation Officer Services has taken a look at [the vehicle].”

He acknowledged there was some oil and gas in the water, but he said that it was not from the vehicle itself.

“My understanding is that ... there was oil and gas leaking. The gas was from a five-gallon jerry can. The oil was coming from the boat as well, not from the Volkswagen,” said Cunneyworth.

“That being said, with water running through a Volkswagen, chances are it could be (leaking). It doesn’t take a lot of oil or gas to make it look like a huge pollution issue, and certainly we don’t want that.”

Neither Environment Canada nor Conservation Officer Services could comment at press time.

Currently, the barge is on Crown land. Thus the city cannot enforce any clean-up or removal.

Pitt Meadows, the land management branch, the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, the Ministry of Environment, Transport Canada and Environment Canada are all trying to resolve jurisdictional and environmental issues.

Last May, Rietel was given a three-month vehicle access to the barge, allowing him to start clean-up. Elchuk, who documents the site on a weekly basis, doesn’t believe there has been substantial work done yet.

But Rietel, said he’s been there for a number of days dismantling what’s left of the mess.

On the barge, piles of wood–what used to make up the boathouse, which collapsed in the winter – sit stacked in piles along the barge, an indication that Rietel is slowly picking away at the massive project.

“I have chronic rheumatoid arthritis. It’s in my back, my hands, my neck, my knees,” he said, adding it affects the progress he can make. “It’s hard work, and it’s slow, and there’s a lot of it.”

Rietel bought the parcel of land on the north side of the Alouette River in December 2002.

While he owns the foreshore, or water side, of the dike for several hundred metres along the river, the barge is moored on Crown land which is below the high water mark.

He brought in the barge in 2004, and he began building the house that winter.

The boathouse was brought in the summer of 2006.

Last summer, the barge began tilting, but after he righted it, the winter weather in December wreaked havoc on the property, collapsing the boathouse and sinking his boat, and tilting the barge into the river.

Rietel argues the current three-month window isn’t going to be long enough for the cleanup.

“Their timing is off. This spring I could’ve had it back up. I even went and told them, ‘I could bring it up now.’” he said. “I’ve given them plenty of opportunities, but they haven’t listened.”

Rietel said he isn’t sure how long it will take to clean up.

Cunneyworth said it’s likely that if the August deadline isn’t met, the ILMB will take “further action,” but he could not speculate whether that would be fining Rietel, or simply extending the deadline.

Rietel said it’s getting done, but in the meantime he said he knows he’s in the right.

“My property is zoned residential. You’d almost think that gives me the right to live here.”