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Jun 27 2012
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Deadline looms for Providence Dam

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The City of Greenwood has to decide whether or not to take over maintenance and liability of the Providence (Marshall) Lake Dam from the province of British Columbia by the end of June.
Discussions about the fate of the dam between the city and the province began in October 2010, after the Providence Dam was flagged as “high risk” in a provincial dam inspection report. The province noted that unless local government or a public body decides to step up, the dam will be decommissioned and the drain would have the lake back to its original size.If decommissioned, the lake would drain along Providence Creek and enter the north end of the city before entering Boundary Creek. The Okanagan Fisheries Section of the Ministry of Environment currently maintains Providence Dam.
Chris Stevenson recently created an online group called the Marshall Lake Stewardship Group to bring awareness to the issue.

“This group was created to achieve one goal – to preserve Marshall Lake,” he said. “The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources has the licence for the dam and since the Testalinden (mudslide in Oliver, B.C. in 2010), the Fish and Wildlife dept. has been working to transfer the licence, or decommission the dam. I believe that this lake is worth saving and I know that other people feel the same way.”
Marshall Lake is located in the Boundary Region between Grand Forks and Greenwood. The rock filled dam has increased the natural size of the lake from 2.64 to 6.5 surface hectares.

“It doesn’t have to be the City of Greenwood, it could be the public,” Stevenson said. “The letter (from Tara White, senior fi sheries biologist for the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resources) that went out said that option one was to keep status quo and to keep it with the government, option two was for it to go to the local government or public and option three was to decommission the dam.”
White pointed out in her letter, that “the Okanagan Fish and Wildlife Program doesn’t have the staff capacity or resources to maintain the dam and conduct annual repairs.”

Stevenson, a former city councillor, noted that the issue fell off Greenwood city council’s radar with the switch in council during the 2011 election, though he has been trying to raise awareness through social media and is trying to form a society or co-op.
“I’m thinking we can do a co-op where everybody will purchase a share, so for $25 you can own part of the lake,” he noted. “There are creative ways to do this that require grassroots, broad base support.”
Stevenson noted that while the City of Greenwood is interested in maintaining the lake, the upkeep of the lake won’t work with just the city alone.
“We need to start to think about environment stewardship in this region because this isn’t the only thing that has come up or will come up,” he said. “If we don’t act right now we’re going to lose it and it’s never going to be there again. We don’t have very many lakes here and it’s doable if a committed group of people get together.”
At last Monday’s Greenwood city council meeting, Mayor Nipper Kettle noted that city council passed a motion that they agree in principle but they will defer the decision.
“City staff has recommended that we not proceed,” Kettle said. “But that doesn’t mean you always go with the recommendation. We will be asking the government for an extension in the deadline. It’s a very tough situation because obviously the ministry/government would like to get rid of it.”
The mayor pointed out that the dam has been there for a long time and will be there for more years to come.
“Ultimately it boils down to risk and risk management and liability,” Kettle said. “I don’t know if I would want to strap the citizens of Greenwood with the possibility of anything catastrophic ever happening. It’s a beautiful site with camping and picnic tables, it will still be there but it’ll be much smaller.”
Marshall Lake has a recreational value with its campgrounds and picnic tables, Kettle pointed out.
“We’re looking at ways to keep it, but we do have to have a decision to make soon,” he concluded, noting that Marshall Lake is located in the regional district of Area D.
RDKB Area D director Irene Perepolkin has declined the possibility of taking liability of the lake.
“We don’t know what the liability is of the cost of bringing it up to standard,” she explained. “The (government) gave an estimate of about $135,000 to $400,000 just to bring it back up to standards before we could even get liability insurance on it. I’m not interested on taking on the cost for Area D.”

Perepolkin pointed out that there isn’t a sufficient number of her residents who use the area during the summer time.

“They do use it for cross-country skiing during the winter quite a bit, but the level of the water isn’t prohibited for that,” she added. “The lake isn’t going to completely disappear, but the water levels will be lowered to what they originally were if (the government) does decommission it.”
If a group was to be formed, Perepolkin said, “Area D wouldn’t mind helping maintain the lake but we wouldn’t want to have any stake hold in it. It’s not something my area is willing to support at this time.”
The Providence inspection occurred after the Testalinden dam incident near Oliver, B.C. in June 2010. The incident resulted in a debris and mud torrent that damaged a number of homes and agricultural areas.

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Jun 20 2012
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Video Express to close permanently

Grand Forks’ Video Express on Central Avenue will be closing its doors next month due to declining customers and sales.
“Basically we’ve had about a third of customers gravitate towards other means because there are so many options today that you can pick,” said owner Chris Smith. “There are other avenues that one can pick to receive entertainment, such as downloading (which a lot of people do), or Shaw Cable.”
Smith said that Shaw’s new offering and range of films has also had a large impact.
“They did that three months promotion over Christmas time for nothing to get people on board and that attracted a lot of people towards it because it’s easier for them and particularly when it’s free initially,” he explained. “Customers found it convenient even though they ultimately pay more.”
The advent of technology has also offered more options, including online streaming and Netflix, a site that offers older films and television series online.
Smith added that even cell phones are now equipped with a lot more options than previously.
“It’s another percentage of customers gravitating to something a little bit easier,” Smith said.
“In essence, over the last two years, about a third of our customer base has gravitated to other means and the two-thirds that we have left, although it’s a really good two-thirds, doesn’t keep our store afloat.”
Despite the ongoing support, Smith explained that they tried to stretch it out as long as they could.
“The store closing not only means the business not being here or the service, but also a loss of jobs for staff,” he said. “We’re trying to keep it going for as long as we could, but in the end, the income coming in isn’t supporting the outgoing services. A third of the customers is a lot and we didn’t have that big of a margin, even when we scaled back.”
In a town with a small population, if some customers leave, the impact is felt more than in a bigger store, Smith stated.
“If it’s a larger town and it shrinks, there’s still a sufficient number of people who are coming in, but because it is a smaller town, to try and support a store this size is hard,” he said.
Grand Forks resident Liz Martin is disappointed to hear about the closing of the video store.
“I guess it is a sign of the times!” she said. “ I was a frequent visitor and enjoyed talking to the staff also.  It will be quite a loss for our town, and now video lovers will have to invade the library, as they seem to have quite a good selection of movies.”
Smith noted that the store will be open for another four to five weeks, but it depends on how long it takes to sell the inventory.
Video Express first opened in Grand Forks in October 1994, and has been in its current location on Central Avenue for the last 10 years.
“Thank you to everyone for their patronage and support over the last 18 years,” Smith concluded. “I’m very sad to be closing it and it’s not something that we wanted to do.”
Though farther away, Video Express has stores in Castlegar, Creston and Armstrong.

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Jun 13 2012
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Regional District of Kootenay Boundary to manage Kettle River Watershed

The Kettle River Watershed Management Plan, led by the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB), will include public involvement that will shape the future of the watershed.
The plan will be a document that will guide decisions by different levels of government, resource managers and individuals about how to use and manage the Kettle River Watershed.
Graham Watt, project co-ordinator for RDKB, said the plan would look at everything from irrigation to land use planning to resource management.
“What we do on the land also affects the water and this is a way of looking at it holistically,” he said.
“When you’re doing a watershed plan, you look at all of the issues that effect people’s ability to use and enjoy water, so that might be the aquatic ecosystems, the fisheries, the amphibians that need water.”
In phase one, which started last year, Summit Environmental from Vernon conducted the ethical study that looked at the state of the watershed.
“What do we know and how is it doing,” Watt explained. “It’s an opportunity for us to start with a sound basis of knowledge because it tells us what we know and what we don’t know, and it gives us some really good guidelines for going in and understanding things better to make recommendations.”
The management plan is the second phase and will work to identify issues that affect water and the watershed, understanding those issues and developing recommendations to different levels of government.
The Kettle River has been considered one of the most endangered rivers for the past two years and Watt believes the status is also due to the risks that are possible in the future.
“There’s a number of issues and concerns that are on the top of the mind when thinking about the endangered river status in a couple of years,” he said.
“Certainly, a lot of people are concerned about the amount of water being used at parts of the watershed and we want to take a really careful look at how much water is there, how much water is available over time and how that changes within the year, and when are the constraints of water use.”
Watt noted that there are also other concerns about water quality, forestry and range use by cattle.
“If you live by water or live, play and work near water, there’s a chance that your activities could affect the ecosystems around the water, called riparian areas or wetlands,” Watt explained.
“Homeowners and land users can take steps to protect the area around the water by stepping back and not clearing down all the way to the lakeshore, or by providing watering sites for cattle away from streams.”
Assisting the management plan is the Stakeholder Advisory Group, which includes 30 representatives of communities, organizations and businesses from across the region.
Grace McGregor, chairperson for the Kettle River Stakeholder Advisory Group and RDKB Area C director, stated the stakeholder committee is representative of the whole region.
“We commissioned a study to bring all of the information on the Kettle River together so that we have one document to work from and so we can identify any gaps in the document,” she said. “When we sit down and talk about a management plan we’re not missing large chunks of information.”
McGregor believes that this study has been a long time coming and something that everyone is passionate about.
She would like to remind residents that the study and plan is not using taxation dollars.
“It’s important to realize that it’s gas-tax dollars and grants being used, so people don’t need to fear that their tax dollars are going into this,” McGregor said. “The province has done a lot of in-kind work and that’s really important.”
Down the road, McGregor hopes to see a marriage with the Kettle River’s Management Plan and the Christina Lake Watershed Plan.
Watt stated that the RDKB is looking at a two-year timeline.
“Over the next year we’ll be going over issues and developing goals and the next year we’ll be making recommendations,” he said. “There will be a lot of negotiations and public consultation that will happen, but there may be further studies required.”
Summit Environmental invites the public to a presentation of the “State of the Kettle River Watershed” at 7 p.m. on June 18 at the Midway Community Centre.
For information, visit kettleriver.ca or drop by the RDKB office located in Grand Forks.

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