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CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1989

d to the

CosNews photo by Guy Bertiand

Castlegar water
not dirty, city says

By CasNews Staff
The City of Castlegar is not using old
wells to supplement its water supply
following an increase in the demand
for water due to the rec
weather, the city’s director of
engineering said today.

INSIDE

Labatts
wins

page B1

Lottery
numbers

The winning numbers drawn
Tuesday in The B.C. Keno
lottery were 5, 12, 22, 24,
36,39, 50 and 51.

7

However, Kevin Lagan said a well
behind city hall is part of the city’s
water system and is used almost every
year during periods of high water con
sumption

A man who said he is a city employee
called the Castlegar News Tuesday and
said the city has opened two long.

supplement the
The caller asked not

unused wells to
demand for water
to be identified

He said the city has received a num-
ber of complaints of a strong chlorine
smell and grease in the water. But
Lagan said chlorine is a colorless, or
dorless gas and any smell in the water
would be *‘the chlorine doing its job’’
on any excess siltation in the pipes
higher, faster-moving
volumes of water

The city has also conducted tests on
the chlorine levels and they are within
the two parts per million allowed, he
added

There could be grease in the water

from the

from non-toxic solvents used to join
pipes but that is unlikely since most of
the water lines jn the city have been in
the ground fdr years and the solvents
would have dissolved by now, Lagan
said

The city has one water
complaint so far this week, he added.

Castlegar uses an average of about
3.2 million litres of water per day but is
currently using about 31.4 million
litres per day, Lagan noted? The
almost tenfoldincreaseistargetydue to
high sprinkler use, he said

The well behind city hall is on a
pressure-control system and when the
water pressure drops the well kicks in
automatically and may run for several
hours at a time, Lagan said

The city’s water system, a series of
pipes that bring in water from Lower
Arrow Lake to a chtorinator, is quite
capable of handling most of the city’s
water needs, even during high demand,
he said

received

Contract
extension
sought

By CLAUDETTESANDECKI
Staff Writer

The Ministry of Social Services and
negotiating with the
Castlegar and District. Community
Services Society to extend the contract
of Castlegar’s family service
worker, spokesman Lou
Violini said

Housing is

new
ministry

Cathy Evan's current contract runs
out Aug. 31 and so far her program has
received $13,025 for April to August of
this year, Violini said

Community services centre co

ordinator Tish Lakes said she wants
the new program — part of the provin
cial government's initiative to
strengthen the family — to become a
permanent part of the

vices.

centre’s ser

“Families need help all the time,
she said

Evans, who has a degree in social
work from the University of Calgary,
helps families with children deal with a
variety of problems and issues from
sexual abuse or the loss of a family
member to communication problems,
she said

Evaris, said she can intervene in a
crisis situation to help people ‘‘get
through the day’ but a large part of
her work is long-term counselling to
prevent a crisis or to help the family
cope with the aftermath of a crisis.

Evans is able to do in-home coun
selling and sometimes uses artwork or
play as an aid while discussing family
problems with children, she said

Families are referred to her by.the
Social Services Ministry but families
can also request her help, Evans said
She added she is currently working
with six Castlegar families.

Evans said she expects to becomd
busier in the fall when
receiving referrals from
munity
programs and the schools.

Lakes said the society's budget has
almost tripled this year thanks to fun
ding for the family program and other
initiatives at the centre

The society's budget for 1998-90 is
$104,000, she said, up from $41,000
in 1988-89 and $27,000 in 1987-88

The funding boost is partially due to
the centre insisting Castlegar start

continued on page A2

she
the
parenting

begind
com

services centre's

WEATHERCAST

Tonight: Cloudy with o few: clear
Scattered showers or

thundershowers. Low near

Thursday: Sunny with

per

High neor

Friday and into the weekend 1s

mainly sunny ond warmer

Probability of precipitation is 70
1 cent tonight and 50 per cent

Thursday

Land sale
raises fear
of pollution

By CLAUDETTESANDECKI
Staff Writer

Lower Arrow Lake may become
polluted with liquid waste from
thousands of head of cattle if a com
pany is allowed to buy B.C. Hydro
property on the western shore of the
lake, a Nakusp resident and former
farmer says.

Mike Fraitzl, who left the. business
last year after 50 years of farming, told
the Castlegar News a cow can drink up
to eight gallons of water per day and if
the urine is not contained on the
property, which slopes into the lake, it
will run freely into the water, especially
in the spring when the earth is
saturated with melting snow

A number of water users in the area
take their water from the lake,
cluding Ceigar Pulp Co. and the City
of Castlegar, which has a treatment
facility

Mike Harnadek, chief public health
inspector for the Central Kootenay
Health Unit, said he is aware of the
pending land sale and the concerns of
area residents over the proposed feed
lot but his department has not been
asked to becomeinvolved at this point

Barry \Wood, acting regional
manager of the provincial Environ-
ment Ministry's Waste Management
Branch in Nelson said he has received a
“*sketchy”’ tentative proposal from the
Long Drive Cattle Co. of Barriere,
B.C. outlining possible methods for
dealing with liquid and solid waste
from as many as 40,000 head of cattle.

The plans include a system of ditches
that would channel liquid into an un-
derground treatment facility, similar
toa septic tank system, Wood said

The company is also proposing
stockpiling manure over the winter to
be used as.fertilizer, an idea Wood
called ‘‘prudent."” Summer waste —
which would likely be much less than in
the winter because fewer cattle would
be on the feedlot — would be stock
piled until the fall, Wood said the
company has suggested

Waste management is working with
the Ministry of Agriculture on the
proposed feedlot, Wood said, and the
two government departments would
have to be satisfied with the plans
before the lot could go ahead.

For instance, the Ministry of
Agriculture has regulations on the
ratio of land to the amount of manure
that can be spread on it as fertilizer, he
said.

The land — 10 lots in West Arrow
Park valued at $1.6 million — is part of
the Agricultural Land Resetve and was
bought in the late 1960s by B.C. Hydro

in-

WEST ARROW PARK
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FARM UNIT

ON THE BLOCK . . . map shows the location of the 10 lots in West
Arrow Park B.C. Hydro has offered for sale.

in conjunction with the Columbia
River Treaty dams, said Earl Moffat of
B.C. Hydro’s land office

The lots are on the market now, with
the closing date for bids set for Sept
10, Moffat said.

A number of logging companies in
terested in the timber on the lots have
asked for the brochure on the proper
ty, he added. The Long Drive Cattle
Co. has not asked for the brochure at
this point, Moffat said

The lots were determined in 1985 af
ter a study was conducted to mark
boundaries that would give each lot ‘‘a
little bit of everything that’s there,”” he
said

The lots range in size from 12 hec-
tares to 96 hectares with price tags
ranging from $60,000 to $600,000.

Selling the lake property is part of
B.C. Hydro’s plans to sell all the com-
pany’s area holdings, Moffat said
Every property between Castlegar and
Revelstoke will be put up for sale by the
end of August, he said

A public meeting
proposed feedlot will be held at the
Burton Community Hall Aug. 10 at
7:30 p.m. Representatives of the cattle
company, the ministries of Environ
ment and Agriculture and the Regional
District of Central Kootenay are slated
toattend

to discuss the

Airport to stay put

By CasNews Staff
The Kootenay*Region Task Force

Transportation is not suggesting
moving or abandoning the Castlegar
Airport and anyone inferring such a
suggestion from the recommendations
contained in the task force's draft
report is ‘‘jumping to
clusions,”’ a regional development of
ficer for the provincial government
said.”

The draft report **makes no referen:
ge whatsoever to the abandonment of
the Castlegar Airport,"” Tom Greene
said

on

some con

Greene suggested a close and
thorough reading of the recommen
dations will reveal there's no intent to
abandon the Castlegar Airport

The draft report that
Castlegar Airport support
night operations the
surrounding terrain and recommends

“*That a study be commissioned by
the provincial government in conjun
ction with the federal government to
determine a suitable alternative site to
the Castlegar Airport in order to ac
commodate night operations in the
western portion of the region

“This part of the recommendations
was in response to the task force's
feeling that the lack of an airport in the
western portion of the region that
could accommodate night flying con
ditions acting as a potential

notes the
cannot

because of

was

restraint to economic development in
the area,’’ Greene said.

Castlegar
meeting agreed to

council at its July

send letters to

city

federal and provincial officials
protesting the recommendation which
Ald. Doreen Smecher said was not

continued on page A2

Valley man
gets on knees
to protest

By CasNews Staff
If you drive up the Slocan Valley
in the next two weeks, keep your
eyes open for a man moving along
the road on his hands and knees
Nick Cifirelli, a Silverton
resident, is crawling from Silverton
to Nelson to protest the destruction
of the earth and to make people
more aware of environmental con.
cerns, said his friend David Smith,
also of Silverton

Cifirelli left his home Monday
morning and plans to reach Nelson
in 10 to 14 says, Smith said.
Cifirelli is averaging nine to 10
kilometres per day, he added

Cifirelli is wearing rubber knee
pads about 1.5 centimetres thick
and is going through a pajr of
gloves per day, Smith said, Cifirelli
is carrying food, a blanket and a
small tent and sleeps by the side of
the road, Smith added

So far there have
humorous responses to the protest,
Smith said, such as people concer
ned Cifirelli fell off his bike.

But the protester already seems
to be making progress on his goal
of awareness: he was interviewed
on CBC radio Tuesday morning
and the CBC evening show As It
Happens has expressed interest in
talking to him, Smith said

been some