Rotting boats, old American floating bridge blemishes on the beauty of B.C.’s Alouette and Pitt rivers

The lower branch of the Alouette River in Pitt Meadows is serene and beautiful, a lovely place to go for a bike ride or hike along the dikes that line its banks.

But it’s not all picture perfect. At several spots along the river, derelict boats, docks and a collapsed boathouse clutter the shoreline. Boaters and kayakers can see additional refuse on the riverbed, such as car tires and outboard engines.

“You feel like you’re in a Third World country when you see that,” said Mark Caros of the Alouette River Management Society (ARMS), which works to maintain the “integrity” of the Alouette watershed.

Caros set out to find a government body to take responsibility and clean it up. But it’s complicated because the area falls under several jurisdictions.

The province is responsible for the Alouette, but it drains into the nearby Pitt River, which is federal and comes under the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. The land alongside both rivers is in Pitt Meadows.