Feelings about Lake Cowichan tubing are mixed, even amongst the tubers themselves.

Some tubers interviewed said they thought everyone was well-behaved on the water and that they were happy to see garbage bins along the river being used, while others feel garbage is still a large problem.

“Two or three groups can ruin it for everyone else,” said a group of tubers who came to town from Victoria. “Everyone else was perfectly well-behaved,” they said.

Another tuber who has been using Cowichan river for two years for tubing said he didn’t see anything floating around and people were using garbage bins.

“People on the docks were nice and friendly,” he said.

Still, there continues to be problems on the river as temperatures soar this summer.

It wasn’t clear if the tubers interviewed brought along alcohol for their rides, but none of the six groups the Gazette spoke with acknowledged public intoxication is a problem because it’s illegal.

A group of young girls said they didn’t notice empties being left behind in the river, but that maybe noise could be a problem. “It’s a public river,” one said, while another added that drinking on the river is just a part of the experience and that it’s all in fun.

A July 25 Cowichan Lake Stewardship meeting concluded 2,400 empties were collected in garbage cans along the river in one month, mostly from alcoholic beverages.

Some empties don’t make it into the cans though.

“There are garbage cans put out, I don’t know why people can’t seem to get their cans in them,” said Karma MacDonald, a Lake Cowichan resident. “There are always those people disrespecting the area.”

“If they had someone two hours a day to hand out tickets on the river, it could help,” she said. “Make a presence and people will listen.”

It does seem like it’s mostly tourists creating the problem, said MacDonald, adding that at least its perhaps good for businesses in town.

People bring their drinks in something when they started so why can’t they take their empties with them? MacDonald said.

Solutions to river waste are making a difference, according to another group of tubers. “It’s so nice to see garbage cans actually on the river,” said a visitor from Langford.

“It’s really fun and really relaxing,” she added of why she likes tubing on a hot day, while acknowledging that times are different now.

“People don’t have respect for people and their property, it’s not like when we were young and watched our language,” she said. “It surprises me, the ignorance.”

People come into Lake Cowichan and forget their manners, said Katherine Worsley, Chamber of Commerce manager. “From what I have heard from the comments, they are out-of-towners [creating problems]. They need to be more respectful about the places they are visiting,” she said, adding that people should bring their manners no matter where they go and what they are doing.

With the problem of increased tubing traffic down Cowichan River getting more media coverage, proposed solutions are starting to take shape. Area I director, Klaus Kuhn, is hosting a follow-up Lake Stewardship meeting to address this growing problem.

“This whole thing is about strength in numbers. A small group will not have much effect,” Kuhn said.

“The lake is so important for us, it’s such a thing of beauty. What people do to the lake is horrendous. I am so motivated to bring about some change, especially to the boat traffic and the noise problems.”

The public meeting on Aug. 15 at council chambers, 10 a.m., is open to the public. Further solutions will be discussed and committees will be formed to address individual problems surrounding lake usage.

“One of the suggestions that was put forward during the last meeting was that we should form a group of people that clean up the river in the fall when most of the summer is over, further making people aware that here is a heritage river and it is being wrecked,” Kuhn said.

Efforts are being made to form a steering committee to manage clean-up committees, organizing boat traffic committees and a fish and wildlife protection committee.

“People are getting drunk on the river. Once they are drunk they don’t care what they do,” Kuhn said. “There are always people that don’t care about nature, when they are drunk, they get to be the majority, and that is the destructive part about it. They shouldn’t control the river,” Kuhn said, adding he hopes the police become more motivated.

At the Aug. 15 meeting, the Lake Cowichan Adventure Co., is sending a representative to address questions, concerns, and propose their own solutions to the problem of reckless tubers.

Mike Waller, co-owner of the new tube rental company, has only been open a year, and said the business draws in a lot of families.

“We can do business far better with families than we can with drunks,” he said. His company aims to manage problems on the river, but not take away all of the fun. Waller said at times he does turn people away if they appear to be intoxicated.

The plan for next summer is to know the name of exactly who is riding each tube rented out by the company, Waller said. This could be done by having license plate-like stamps on rental tubes that correlate to paper work people fill out when they register for a rental.

People already sign an agreement to acknowledge they won’t pollute the river or surroundings areas with garbage, or bother surrounding homes with excessive noise, foul language and lewd behavior. Having coded tubes could help ensure this commitment.

This way, riverfront residents can call and report extremely bad behavior. “We are trying to make this safe for everyone,” Waller said. As for now, Waller said when people see the three-striped tubes, they can call the company to tell them what is going on, good or bad.

Waller said it is important to keep eye on people who are misbehaving rather than on those who are just there to have fun, adding that he was excited to see a police presence on the river last Saturday of the long weekend.

Lake Cowichan adventure Co. is also tackling parking problems by providing a free ride back to Saywell park for it’s tubers, and helping fund an end of the season clean up crew of the area.

Waller said he feels tubing draws a lot of people to the town. “All you have to do it look to the sides of the streets to see how our neighbourhood is without tubers. We want to make it better.”

In it’s first six weeks online, the company’s website had 57,000 first time visitors and now has over 800 followers on Facebook. Online bookings are available, and practically required during extreme heat.

Waller said he has had people come from the southern U.S., Ireland, Japan, China and the Netherlands renting tubes for the day.

In response to the accusations that trips down the river are just a booze cruise for some, Waller said, “we believe that there is a need, and we are going to fill that need for highclass dinner cruises your average boozer couldn’t afford.”

Lake Cowichan Adventure Co. has ambitious plans for the future of tubing, including breaking a world record this upcoming weekend. They are organizing a 1,500 person chain of tubes setting of at Skutz Falls at 12:00 p.m. Aug. 16.

All of these issues and more will be discussed on Sat. Aug. 15 at 10 a.m. Everyone is welcome.