Provincial Court Judge agrees charges can proceed in Lemon Creek fuel spill case
Slocan Valley resident Marilyn Burgoon is pleased with a ruling by Judge Mayland McKimm that allows the BC Government and Executive Flight Centre Fuel Services Ltd. to face charges in relation to the Lemon Creek fuel spill. In a media release, Burgoon said, “This is a very important victory for democracy.” Burgoon took up ...
UPDATED: Safeway bomb threat deemed a hoax
On Dec. 18, at roughly 1 p.m., the Castlegar RCMP, Kootenay Boundary GIS, Trail Detachment, Castlegar Fire Department and emergency services responded to a complaint of a bomb threat called in to the manager of Canada Safeway, according to RCMP Cpl. Debbie Postnikoff. "Police immediately evacuated the Canada Safeway and the...
Knot Your Traditional Classroom Activity
Students in the trades programs at Selkirk College’s Silver King Campus squared-off in the annual Knot Tying Competition on Tuesday in Nelson. The fifth annual pre-Christmas event had teams of students from the Millwright/Machinist Program, Welding Program and Carpentry Foundation Program manipulating rope as more than 100 of their peers cheered them on. “The purpose […]
OUT OF LEFT FIELD: On the strike, random acts of kindness and family
I’ve been in a total funk for the past few weeks – all the negativity and rage surrounding the current city strike have been so disheartening and demoralizing. I keep thinking, What about after the strike? We’re all going to have to go back to working together, shopping in each other’s stores, attending our children’s hockey...
Mayor speaks to issue of damaged snowplow
In a politically-driven Facebook forum called The Castlegar Podium, striking union member Darrel Bojechko was expressing upset over the amount city managment are being paid to handle essential services such as snowplowing in the union's absence, and added, "And I might add they have done thousands of dollars damage to the...
City/union to resume mediated talks
The City of Castlegar has initiated mediated talks with CUPE Local 2262 (striking city workers) to begin this coming Monday, according to Mayor Lawrence Chernoff. Chernoff said David Schuab, the Labour Relations Board mediator who wrote recommendations for settlement on Sept. 22 of this year, will be mediating the discussion....
Interior Health review of Lemon Creek spill reveals gaps in response, recommendations for improvement
Interior Health (IH) has sifted through the details of its response to the 2013 Lemon Creek fuel spill in the Slocan Valley, and determined that responses to future incidents like this need to be faster and better coordinated. The spill happened on July 26, 2013 when a truck delivering jet fuel for helicopters fighting a […]
Castlegar Fire Department gone to the dogs
Castlegar firefighters had a howling good time last night, according to Deputy Fire Chief Sam Lattanzio. Lattanzio said that last night, at 6:32 p.m., the Castlegar Fire Department responded to a single vehicle rollover approximately nine kilometres west of the city on Highway 3. "On arrival, no human occupants required...
UPDATE: Trail accident proves fatal
A woman has died after a being struck by a car on Dec. 9 in Trail, according to RCMP Sgt. John Ferguson, whose press release reads as follows: On Dec. 9 at approximately 7:13 p.m., Trail RCMP and the West Kootenay Traffic Services were dispatched to a single motor vehicle crash involving an automobile and two pedestrians on...
The Year-End Blues
“What rough beast … slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” -- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming “Americans still heralded the Enlightenment’s entry into history precisely because they’d all been uprooted from their several soils and ancestries and plunged together into one vortex, whirling irresistible in a space otherwise quite...
