School zone etiquette: a need for reduced speed
Q: My question concerns school zones. I notice that the school zone by the Salt Spring Elementary school is marked with both the student icon and speed limit of 30 km/hr, but when you are in the area of the high school there is only the student icon, no speed limit. Is it still 30? Thanks for clarifying.
— CF, Salt Spring Island
A: As drivers on the Gulf Islands where road signs are few and far between, it never hurts to refresh our knowledge of the rules of the road. An ICBC accident report recently requested by the Driftwood shows speed ranked as the number one factor contributing to single vehicle crashes on Salt Spring between 2004 and 2008. We need to slow down! School zones would be a good place to start.
I drove down Rainbow Road on the weekend to examine the signage. The elementary school’s School Zone sign displays a 30 km/h speed limit — this limit is “in effect from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on school days,” according to ICBC’s RoadSense for Drivers handbook.
On Salt Spring, “school days” means Monday to Thursday, according to driving instructor Lorne Bunyan of Cornerstone Driving School.
The high school’s School Zone sign, however, does not display a speed limit and therefore drivers are only required to “reduce speed when children are present.”
Bunyan says the high school signage, however, often confuses drivers.
“People believe the speed limit in front of the high school is 30 kilometres, but it’s not, it’s 50. But common sense tells you to slow down.”
He advises that if people are on the road or if a soccer game is on, drivers should slow down.
Getting caught speeding in a school zone can equal fines between $196 and $483 plus three driver penalty points.
Click here to download ICBC’s chapter on Signs, Signals and Road Markings from the RoadSense for Drivers handbook.
SD64 is in session some Fridays. For example, when Monday is a holiday, schools are in session Friday. There are other reasons too, but it works out to about seven Fridays each school year.
Info is available on the calendar page of the District website:
http://www.sd64.bc.ca/district.html#calendar
Thanks for pointing that out John. Very good point!
I wonder though, for people like me who don’t have kids and who are not connected to the school system, it’s not realistic that I’m going to be on top of the school schedule. However, being reminded that school could still be in session the odd Friday will give me one more reason to drive with caution near the high school and to slow down to 30 km near the elementary school.
Just because it’s a Friday doesn’t mean drivers are in the clear.
And thanks to Jeff Hopkins, superintendent of School District 64, who emailed me a document yesterday detailing school zone driving rules. Here is the link: http://www.gulfislands.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sign_signal_roadmark_4.pdf
re:
Just because it’s a Friday doesn’t mean drivers are in the clear.
Exactly Amy. Consider Friday an in-session day to be on the safe side.
I don’t really understand why the high school students, who are still Minors, have their safety level of the roadway in front of their school reduced (speed increased) to a level below the Elementary school. In Vancouver, I remember seeing 30KM zones in front of Elementary schools AND High Schools regardless.
50 KM along the stretch of Rainbow Road above the Elementary school is dangerous and excessive considering the tight area and the chances of students being on the road during not only mon-fri, but also weekend games and of course during lunch hours when they are moving en-masse.
The stretch there along Windsor Plywood and Murakami is very tight and narrow with little shoulder – in fact no sidewalks or paths….for the schooolkids…..:) – another example of poor planning, so 50km along there is not safe.
When you drive down Rainbow Road, past the pool, at the allowed 50km an hour, you then drive in front of the school into their “school zone”, with no proper signage before entering the zone from that direction.
This one-sided safety concept warns drivers from the ganges end to slow down and of the school strip but allows them to drive at 50km into the upper end of the school strip is
The only thing that I think of that could such poor signage and lack of safety standards for the high school kids, is the underlying reason why I don’t want my kids living here full-time and I am happy to have them here half the time, because this Island’s organization of public assets is a mess of sub-contractors over-seen by Amateurs, who have no education/specialization in “Planning”. Planning is acutally a degree that yopu can do at UBC and Elsewhere and in Vancouver and other cities, for city or Community “PLanning”, you hire “Planners”, which also include some Architects, but the head “PLanners” are skilled/specialized in “Planning”
Here on Salt Spring, even the Board of Variance is Volunteer, which means that Planners are not managing the community. I know that the Parks and Recreation Commission and Committes, most likely do not have any Planners as well.
So unfortunatley this place is being ran as a volunteer amateur show and that puts my children at risk, in ways such as the school zones aren’t even properly managed.
Hi again,
I must apologize for not clarifying certain things in the last email as the libray time is limited. But let me try to explain in a few short points:
1) My point regarding “Amateurs” managing our public assets here, is in no way trying to be insulting to the Parks and Recreation Commission who decide what to do with the 2 million dollar annual Parks and Rec budget or the other “Volunteer” committes here, such as the volunteer members of the Board of Variance.
- Unfortunatley though, they are not trained in the specialization of civic Planning – which makes it “Amateur” in the truest definition.
2) An example of this poor Civic Planning due to lack of Civic Planning education/specialization is the lack of care for the school kids in not even creating safe path areas into town from the school and putting the Crosswalk sign (yes, that is what the “School Zone” sign reads to me as, and I have 25 years safe driving) – but yes things like safe paths are some of the things that should be considered in Community Planning, neither of which this island hads enough of. And you wonder why I don’t want my sons going to school here?
3) Another great example of how lack of Planning Knowledge and disjointed civic management is the uses on the upper area of Rainbow Road. This is Zoned as a “Rural Area” In this rural area we have a Cement Plant, surrounded by Family homes and further up a Metal Recycling business. the winds blowing up and down the Vesuvias Ganges valley carry the dusts and industrial airborne pollutants into the lungs of the school kids on the NW days and into the neighbours West on the SW days. And on the wind doldrum days, the air just sits low and slowly poisons the area’s residents. Now, a planner would be trained in these things and wouldn’t allow that. Here on Salt Spring, apparently the Islands Trust have been notified about the Metal Recylcing, car crushing Plant and nothing has been done about it ever. In fact the owner got “businessman of the Year” this year. Meanwhile, I can’t get pulled parts for my car because the Islands trust wouldn’t let Mr. Murakami keep cars in the back lot, but it is OK to crush metal and send clouds of poisonous dust out and send clouds of cancer causing silica from the Cement plant into the lungs of the kids next door. Not to mention the extremely dangerous Plarge Propane cylinders, which aren’t even allowed on a passenger ferry, but are allowed next door and across the street from families. And you wonder why I don’t want my kids here except for vacationing???
4) I don’t know if it corruption that Wolfgang, the only enforcement officer for the entire Gulf Islands, for both the CRD lands and Islands trust Bylaws, is not allowed to enforce the local tough guy who owns the metal place or if he is told by the Islands Trust office not to bother him but to bother Mr. Murakami, or whatever it is, but it only hurts the public health.
Frankly, coming from Vancouver, it feels hillbilly that the local yocals allow a guy to pollute because he is a “local”.
5) In Vancouver, when I worked in Development Services, looking at Development Plan Applications. It was common to see local people who wanted a permit to do something, like a cement plant or Metal Shop let’s say, in an industrial area. While they could carry on about how they are “taxpayers”, and they can go to the Board of Variance. In the end, the members of the Board of Variance (who are paid and high level Planning people – yes, trained unlike Salt Spring) will tell people at times, “NO, while it is your best interests and your business’ best interests, it is unsafe for your neighbours and the community at large” And that is why the taxpayers hire “Proffessionals”, because they are there to protect us from unsafe land use. It is our public money, which includes Federal and Provincial “Public” money and we have the right to have our world managed by professionals.
6) Here on Salt Spring, locally elected people, often who have no Civic Management skills whatsoever. In fact haviong your local parish support would probably do it on this island. And then they appoint, Volunteers, who most often are also not qualified because the qualified people are working in the cities as Planners etc…
7) I see the socio-economic balance of Salt Spring completely out of whack. It appears that there are certain camps:
- retirees are a huge number and it carries often an attitude of “our Island” and a minimum of change wanted with “our tax money”. They don’t need a $4.50 breakfast diner because they don’t mind the $15 Sunday brunch and they are not concerned with those who can’t afford the $9.00 breakfast at Dagwoods.
-The business owners also are reveling in their high priiced wares. The market is full of $50+ nick nacks, The salt Spring coffee company has a $275 “kids hot Chocolate” compared to the $1 Starbucks kids hot chocolate. and there is nowhere to sit down and have a cheap feed and people watch. Even the hippie-looking coffe shop at Fulford is rip-off city with it’s $5 nut bars. But they don’t care and they will continue to fight against
- Then there is the local vacation land owners who again like the high prices.
-The backpackers don’t stay long because there is nowhere in Ganges for them.
-The highschool kids leave as soon as possible after highschool because there is nothing here.
Even in Highschool there is nowhere reasonable for them to hang out and hanve a French fries and talk.
-There is a thing called the GINI Coefficient, and it appears very high for corrupt countiries where the socio-economic balance is screwed up (Mexico, Philipines, all of SA, All of Africa etc…) The one here on Salt Spring is probably also screwed up because the upper income groups continue to fight to prevent a lower income community from developing. And by lower income I mean young familes here, workers amd all to the detriment of the balance of this place.
Hi again,
I can’t just bitch without offering solutions so here they are on limited Library time:
1) For the Planning of this Island, start hiring professionals and insist that a budget be created in order for those professionalks to actually work for the community.
2) If possible start a Class Action Lawsuit agianst the Provincial Government, The Islands Trust and/or The CRD for “Malpractice/Negligence” for allowing the GUlf Islands to be mismanaged by Amatreurs and for allowing these Amateurs to operate creating “Danger and Damage to the public health by way of allowing mis use of Land within zones not suited or zoned for industrial use/commercial use.
3) investigate the issue of “MOnopoly” with regards to the monopolization of “commercially Zoned” land by the
oet Family and their rekated Salt Spring Real Estate Company. Anybody who has researched the governemnts taking of Japanese Land during WWI, would know that Gavin Moet was the Goverment official in charge of taking and dispersing “Enemey Land” and that his family’s company had bought large amounts of those lands. With the past corruption such as this on the Island, it is not surprising to me that still this day, the Moets, while probably not owning a “Monopolization” of the land on Salt Spring, and they may not even own a Monopolization of the land in Ganges Village, BUT – I have a feeling that the “Commercially Zoned” land in the “downtown core of Ganges is a one-landlord monopoly. – Before I would say that they do have a monopoly on the commercial land in the lower village – I would ask that the federal “Competition Bureau” do a complete audit on the landlords in the inner village of Ganges, which is the “Core” of the Island’s tourist and cultural scene. A group of residents should ask the federal government to examine this because unfortunatly, Ganges in many ways, with it’s “MOet” Cultural history as it’s centre, feels like one of those scary western towns where the biggest rancher owns the hotel, the saloons and all the buildings. – Anyway wake up Salt Springers and don’t allow monopolization in your community.
3) I sat for an interview this week for the voluntary Parks and Recreation Commission – Regarding the Market, I was told it was “very political” in the past and by the looks of the upper end items sold and the lack of any reasonable priced food, (whiuch apparently it was like in the late 70s – which is what gave this island such a “cool” reputation.
I can see that the market is being ran in a way that caters to the upper income tourists but offers nothing for the local young families. I haver been told by locals that there is nothing for them at the market. And to open up cheap food would of course bother the Salt Spring Coffe type owners, who only cater to med-higher incomes, oh and we can’t forget the nine dollar noodle boxes, which go for $375 at HOn’s in Richmond across the water. Utter Gouging, which is expected for tourists I guess, but is also dolled out to locals. I haver mentioned the concept of street food and told by commission members that there are “tons” of rules to get around and this perfectly illustrates the danger of allowing uneducated amateurs make public decisions with YOUR public wealth. The food rules are actually very straight forward and even within the guidelines (hot dog stands – heated precooked food) the commision members dismissed it because they most likely have never read the guidelines.
-I do respect this because I also got 6 months of BY-Law and Zoning training while at City Hall in Vancouver and it teaches one the details of why bylaws are as they are and street food is very do-able and to see members dismiss it as “too complicated/ “tons of rules” truly shows how ignorance/lack of knowledge/skill hinders this community by having community “Managers” who have no clue about the laws they are supposed to be using and “UNDERSTANDING PROPERLY” in order for them to properly do their jobs the
4) There is nothing for the kids here as far as an economy for them and it is because the community here is being ran by interest groups and non-experts.
5) OH and the burn-offs should be regulated to windier days in order to disperse the smoke, but they don’t really deal with it and it is another example how your island is in a terrible state of mismanagement.
6) Oh and get this, our pool costs $900,000 a year but the Percy Norman Pool – two pools sauna jacusi, huge facilities,, the Percy Norman Community Centre (gym etc, and the giant Rink – all run for 1.3 million a year . why? because non-professionals made the decisions for you.
bye…:)
Hi again, this is the last one today, but I must finish.
That is right, the operating expenses for: 1)an ice Rink, with a full schedule of games, public skates, fully staffed,
2) a pool with a second diving pool, sauna, whirlpool, weightroom, and large changerooms
3)the adjoining community centre with courses, kids drop-in room, basketball gym.
All run for 1.3 million compared to .98 million for a Salt Spring single pool, with no weight room or sauna (I have never seen one without a sauna) – WITH LIfegaurds who are paid considerably less than the $19 an hour that Vancouver Lifegaurds get.
So why is this? How can this happen?
The answer is because you had non-experts who are not trained in civic planning or budgets (I would assume) who obviously NEVER looked at the publically available pool costs for local pools in Vancouve and other areas.
You got ripped off Salt Spring and to add insult to injury, the lifegaurds, who are the people with young families and young workers of our community, get paid sub-standard wages, while the community pays exhorbatant costs for a pool that doesn’t even have full opening hours and is closed on Thursdays with half days Sat-Sun.
In Vancouver pools like Percy Norman are open from &:30 to 9:30 with often 5:30 close on Sundays, but they are open and available as a community service/asset, 7 days a week. So why did the amateur commission agree to a sub-standard facility that costs $980,000 a year while the local workers there don’t even get fair Lifegaurd wages???
This is a fucked up place in some ways and again I will make the point that even City Council, when asked many times a year to go past the board of variance and change zonings etc, will still revert to the Planners and Cinvic Management professionals, because if they did not, then they would be allowing amateur desicions to supercede professional opinions and the planners are there for the public best interest as a whole, not for interest groups.
Salt Spring is unfortunatly ran by interest groups and to allow local non-experts to decide a pool’s budget, or ANY public budget is MALPRACTICE/NEGLIGENCE, on the part of the groups who set up this system and on the part of the individuals who make the decisions.
The other group on the Island that I didn’t mention was the young families, who are a lot of the mid-level workers on the island, they are caropenters, store clerks, etc… and the schools are full of their children, who have no future here when they graduate and have no jobs here for the summer because the local interest groups have prevented an economic world for them.
In the end I do love it here, but I will not raise my kids full-time in a place where a bunch of local interest groups are creating a world here in their vision, ignoring the people who work in the local businesses and ignoring the kids growing up here.
This is why the Director of Planning in Vancouver is responsible to the people of the community and you can be Donald TRump and The Director will still insist that you do not polute, that you create a healthy wide-ranging community around and within the development project – before the developer’s vision is allowed.
The local community comes first and here the interest groups come first.
The other issue here is that although the majority of the residents here may be retirees and vacation property owners, it does not allow them to create a world that leaves no socio-cultural-economy for the other residents here and that is what has happened here.
In the end, I am happy to have the kids here during vacations, but it is sad that this has happened here. That I can’t take the kids for the $3.75 breakfast like in Vancouver or a $1 kids hot chocolate, or even have anything for us at the “public” market.
Alas, but there is hope because there are also a lot of amazing people here and if they did get up and do something, like seeing if we are living in a monopoly or seeing if wour public assets are being mismanaged amateurly – then there is hope for the kids in the elementary and secendary schools to stayhere after grad.
Sorry, I have to finish what I set out to say and then I can get back to enjoying my life on Salt Spring.
1) To follow up the Metal Recycling place, I did actually go by the Islands Trust and ask what was going on and I was told that there was a court injunction that had been filed and that is all that it can be done. The area is split between an Agricultural zone and a Rural zone, neither of which allow Industrial usage, which I assume such a business is. The thing with Industrial zones is that is is always a faux pas to put an “I” zone beside a residence. there is an issue of poisoning neighbours before the pollutants have had a chance to disperse.
In Vancouver the smaller places are set in light industrial zones and the larger ones doing cars are set a lot down by the river (Annacis Island etc..). The river allows for an clear airflow to disperse the dust. In fact the dust, particle issue is such one that if you demolish a home, it is supposed to be sprayed down in order to minimize particle poisoning of others.
So can a recycling place or Cement plant and Propane storage facility safely be in the bowl that runs from Ganges up Rainbow Road? Maybe they can because the Cement Plant is in an I4 zone, so it is fine to be there, regardless of the particle danger to the residents directly to either side. This is not to mention the fact that the Gulf Islands Secondary School, and Elementary, and Middle schools, and the village are all down wind for the many days the wind goes down the valley from the NW.
Now I am getting to my point…:) The I zone should never had been put there but it has been there for so long, well, let it go. In Vancouver, the many plants down on the river mostly get offshore winds and the stuff gets pushed down the valley to Abbotsford (and before I forget, don’t move to Abbortsford:). Anyway, thesezones are place specifically so they don’t harm the neighbours or community at large – or at least hope to minimize it.
What has to happen here is that CRD or Provincial or Federal Crown Land needs to be ceded as Industrial area and if businessess have to move to safer locations, they should be compensated for it. And regarding the recycling and cement plants being sub-level in their care of their business practices and level of environmental requirements for the area, the Islands Trust bylaws officer said that the metal recycling plant was actually being ran in a very tight clean manner.
BUT regardless, if they shouldn’t be there further up the road because of zoning, why is the cement plant and propane storage being set closer and being allowed an Industrial use of the land.
I think honestly the zoning is really screwed up here and too much decision making is being done by emotion with no expertise whatsoever regarding the safety issues and greater good of the community.
A good example of how a city hall helps is that in Vancouver, the Cambie Residents and Buisinesses were so up in arms about the subway line to Richmond. “not in our neighbourhood”, Not with our tax money” – but is was better to safe millions of tons of extra car and bus fumes so it was better for all and despite those peole being “long time residents”, they obviously were self-serving and/or ignorant of the complexities of the situation, which is the case here when you are letting volunteer non-expert quasi-church committees run things that people get degrees for in order to understand.
Another good example is Riley Park in Vancouver which is being rezoned in the coming year or so. The team who will do the rezoning report will spend probably 6 months doing a detailed study of all the factors concerning the Riley Park area at 33rd and Main.
Now this is the important thing here Salt Spring which has ruined the socio-economical-cultural balance of this Island:
The Riley Parke residents will also he accounted for and ther will be “public” meetings”, but as the city counsellors in the end, look at the plan and decide how to rezone, they will take the “long term residents etc…” not neccessarily with a “grain of salt” per se, but for only as much as it should matter, because bill abd Betty etc… will always have their own self interests and in the end the responsible thing for the counsellors to do is to give the vast weight of the details to the $100,000 + or whatever they spent, having experts look at the “Planning” issue carefully and not in an amateur fashion.
What the Islands trust seems to be to me is a group of locals from the islands who make end decisions not based on carefule and professional Planning, but on the basis of these Public Meetings and this is how your world is being planned and that is NEGLIGENT on the part of the organizers of the Islands Trust because it does not create an infrastructure of experts and if there is one in that boondoggle that is the Islands Trust-CRD entities, which should actually be “IN-House” and the counsellors then, having expert advise in front of them always, will tend to make decisions firstly in the best interest of the (I know it is a bad word here) Municipality.
So I think the owners of the Cement Plant/Storage facility and Metal recycling plant are not necessarily to blame, because nobody is acknowledging the need for these services here and if the is a need, then the suitable land should be ceded for that purpose or the land needs to be rezoned to allow the rcycling, but the decision should not ne made by the trustees and public alone, which is clearly what seems to happen here. And that is almost verging on malpractice of sorts in allowing civic design and management to be ran with no expertise, only by local self-interest groups.
So enough of that, your zoning makes no sense and why you put the “I” ares along the school valley bowl is ludicrous considering the vast tracts of CRD, and Crown land on this Island.
-Quickly, yes, the road lines or lack thereof in Ganges. In the windy strip, which even has a pull-in left turn lane is almost invisible. as are many of the lines in main areas. Meanwhile we pay a subcontractor to deal with the Island probably much more by not having it in-house.
St. Mary’s Lake. Oh my god…..The Watershed is a public one and not much can be done with that. But there are a couple of things which again, public volunteer committes should not be overseeing it care. Why? Because:
You actually allow people to use Lead weights in this great fishing lake there is no such ban in effect. I use a brass screw in slingshot/surgical tubing, but you guys allow LEAD???
What about all the Septic Feilds around the lake??? There is a trailer park on the south end, does that have a big run off?
Is there a ban on pesicide use around the lake??
Why was the float plane allowed to land last September when I was fishing???
Why was the fisherman last sunday pissing off his boat into the water????
And this is drinking water? Maybe it is becase there is no-one accountable I guess.
Oh yes and regarding the street food, why not build 30 hot dog type carts and let local students man them all summer? Even in the winter have a street food scene so people can eat cheap and have a social hub.
What about local people doing shuttles to Ruckle?
What about low tide walks?
The last thing I wanted to say is that when I came here the first impression was that here was this cool community built on tolerance with the early settlers and so forth, but if you read the history and even read the Murakami history as well as the covered-up/censored Salt Spring History by Khan I think it was, you will see that ther was alwasy violence and greed amongst the pre-setlers and the 20th century showed that Salt Spring rode the racist wave with the worst of the anti-japs etc… and of course hondreds of acres of land taken by locals still here this element of intolerence and gread.
In the 70′s it seemed to get a reputation of a really neat place and the market was famous. In the 80s-2000 the local self-interest groups went too far the other way and overconservatized the Island and here we stand with church committes and business running the design of the Island
OK, well, I have said enough. I am not saying that I have the answers, I am simply saying that your Island suffers from Koyanasquatsi – world out of balance
Did I say I was finished??? Almost.
In a nutshel, firstly let me say that when I say “Church Committees”, I mean whatever group of “concerned citizens” (non-civil-management/design experts)who at this point make all the important decisions regarding the Gulf Islands and and here at Salt Spring.
This list of PTA/Church Committees” also include the Islands Trust, because those people, who are also non-experts are voted in by the local people.
It is a great system for having meetings to listen to the Public, butit is a system of the blind leading the bliund to the detriment of the community and ecosystem of the Gulf Islands as a whole, because they have no “in-house” expertise and in the end that gives them the right to make amateur decisions. In a MUnicipality, if the counsel ignores professional, expert opinion, then theyare guilty of malpractice and negligence.
Here there is no in-house expert so they either listen to the non-expert and naively amateur, public or they make the desicion as the Trust Counsel of also Naively amateur non-experts.
I have tried to outline the many most-non-impressive outcomes such as starting with improperly marked school zones, no safe access-egress for the kids moving between the schools and downtown/the village, to the storage of highly explosive giant tanks, which in a municipality would never be allowd next door to sleeping kids, but is entirely legal and zoned by the Islands Trust, who deal with land use and Zoning here. I cannot imagine any professional Planner would allow for such side-by-side zoning of Industrial, Residential/Rural and Agricultural.
But if they tried to do the professional thing of creating I Zoned land from public stores (fed-prov-crown etc..) in a safe place for such practices, instead it either continues to no fault of the business owner while other businesses who are OK to be doing what they are doing, are threatened with shut-down with no other optins being created to acknowledge the fact that theI sland does need some Commercial and Industrial land use in order to have a healthy balanced socio-economic community.
This often self-interested and always emotional non-expert public which runs these Islands with no expertise in how to manage such an amazing gift, despite the good intentions, are making the Gulf Islands truly a “Mickey Mouse Operation” in the true sense of the word, because the only actually skilled people with such expertise are the ones in the offices here enforcing the rule of the non-experts as opposed to helping provide exppert assistance to the public in managing it.
The other reason I am writing again is because I had a couple of points:
1) regarding the idera of having 30 hotdog type stands for streetfood, one can serve anything “precooked” and it could be pre-cooked turkey dogs on skewers or tofu skewers, even salmon candy on skewers and then reheated at point of sale, which is what a hotdog stand is. So there are many neat thing you can do with serving “pre-cooked” food. The Richmond night market is an amazing night-food experience and my kids love it and I love the economy of being able to have a $1 skewer or a $2 bowl of dumplings instead of a $3-5 glorified Granola Bar.
2) Why are tankers allowed to use the Gulf Islands as a parking zone. I only heard this in the “Islands Tides paper regarding a tanker touching land off Saturna.
3) The article also mentioned a gypsom barge from tuxeda capsizing in the past which of couse kills the area below most likely and creates a dead zone with the drop area. How is this allowed???? The reason is that this PTA committee bullshit (yes I have finally sweared) is so mickey mouse it is scary.
4) You heard my comments about St. Mary’s lake, well the ridiculous one is Crofton:
The Vesuveus-Ganges rift I will call it, lies directly across ifrom the mill in a bowl like area. Due to the “Rain Shadow” effect we get in this little nook, the wind can be very still and sit as we all know.
The environment reports acknowledge that due to this lack of air movement, pollutant concentrations are often much higher than the calculated rates based on wind dispersdement averages.
People at Salt Spring could often smell the mill in the past so we do know the air does get her regardless of the worst smell staying over at Crofton.
I guesse the worst victims of the crofton would be the west-side salt springers and the residents and schools etc of the vesuveus-ganges valley.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/websol/querysite/facility_substance_summary_e.cfm?opt_npri_id=0000001266&opt_report_year=2008
2008 Facility & Substance Information for Catalyst Paper – Crofton Division
http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/websol/querysite/release_details_e.cfm?opt_npri_id=0000001266&opt_report_year=2008
The above site gives the env. Canada numbers for Crofton these days, just to give some highlights I have pasted the tables below and they are on the sites above.
The bottom line is your standards of civic/island management are sooooooo low that you allow thousands of tonnes of some of the most toxic chemicals known to humans, to waft down the valley and sit over the west island and poison us all. You allow a water-shed lake with no proper bylaws to protect the drinkers of the watershed’s water and you don’t even have a proper enforcement budget to protect it anyway.
And why you ask????
Because a bunch of amateur (well-intentioned) civic/Gulf Islands “Protectors” cannot protect you or organize or manage hoyour Island and the “GUlf Islands Marine Eco Reserve” in an expert professional manner.
From poor signage to 80kg a year of Mercury into the waters off Vesuveus and 7000 tonnes of dioxin vapours over Salt Spring and the “ECo-Reserve”
-The lastthing I did want to say to anyone who feels, “well why doesn’t he just leave then?”.
Well the answer is that being here only 6 months and seeing the MIckey Mouse Manegement of the GUlf Islands. I will do as many Paintings as possible this year and then I will move to safer, better managed pastures.
Regarding Pools and LIbraies. They normally are a manditory part of an Municipality and whether the self-interest groups want it or not, the municipality is in the “trust” ofd the people to make sure they live in a balanced, fair, safe and healthy environment.
Good luck Salt Spring…:)
CAS Number Substance Air Water Land Total Units
Details Details Details
208-96-8 Acenaphthylene – PAH 55 – - 55 kg
75-07-0 Acetaldehyde 17 0.390 – 17 tonnes
NA – 16 Ammonia (total) 50 8.2 – 58 tonnes
NA – 02 Arsenic (and its compounds) 8.8 52 – 61 kg
218-01-9 Benzo(a)phenanthrene – PAH 9.3 – - 9.3 kg
NA – 03 Cadmium (and its compounds) 4.4 5.2 – 9.6 kg
630-08-0 Carbon monoxide 1,472 – - 1,472 tonnes
463-58-1 Carbonyl sulphide 10 – - 10 tonnes
10049-04-4 Chlorine dioxide 106 – - 106 tonnes
NA – D/F Dioxins and furans – total 0.079 – - 0.079 g TEQ
206-44-0 Fluoranthene – PAH 38 – - 38 kg
118-74-1 Hexachlorobenzene 8.2 – - 8.2 grams
NA – 19 Hexavalent chromium (and its compounds) 7.9 43 – 51 kg
7647-01-0 Hydrochloric acid 458 – - 458 tonnes
7783-06-4 Hydrogen sulphide 58 – - 58 tonnes
NA – 08 Lead (and its compounds) 31 26 – 57 kg
NA – 09 Manganese (and its compounds) 0.090 24 – 24 tonnes
NA – 10 Mercury (and its compounds) 1.7 0.520 – 2.3 kg
67-56-1 Methanol 303 13 – 316 tonnes
NA – 17 Nitrate ion in solution at pH >= 6.0 – 30 – 30 tonnes
11104-93-1 Nitrogen oxides (expressed as NO2) 1,087 – - 1,087 tonnes
85-01-8 Phenanthrene – PAH 125 – - 125 kg
108-95-2 Phenol (and its salts) 14 – - 14 tonnes
NA – 22 Phosphorus (total) 0.110 25 – 25 tonnes
NA – M08 PM – Total Particulate Matter 335 – - 335 tonnes
NA – M09 PM10 – Particulate Matter < = 10 Microns 281 - - 281 tonnes
NA - M10 PM2.5 - Particulate Matter <= 2.5 Microns 192 - - 192 tonnes
129-00-0 Pyrene - PAH 29 - - 29 kg
7446-09-5 Sulphur dioxide 3,224 - - 3,224 tonnes
7664-93-9 Sulphuric acid 13 - - 13 tonnes
NA - M14 Total Reduced Sulphur (TRS) 154 - - 154 tonnes
NA - M16 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) 624 - - 624 tonnes
NA - 14 Zinc (and its compounds) 0.780 0.470 - 1.3 tonnes
* There may not be detailed release information for certain substances, because if the total releases of an NPRI Part 1A substance were less than one tonne, only the total releases may be reported.
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Details of On-Site Releases to Air
CAS Number Substance Stack/Point Storage / Handling Fugitive Spills Other Total Units
208-96-8 Acenaphthylene - PAH 55 - - - - 55 kg
75-07-0 Acetaldehyde 14 - 2.1 - - 17 tonnes
NA - 16 Ammonia (total) 50 - - - - 50 tonnes
NA - 02 Arsenic (and its compounds) 8.8 - - - - 8.8 kg
218-01-9 Benzo(a)phenanthrene - PAH 9.3 - - - - 9.3 kg
NA - 03 Cadmium (and its compounds) 4.4 - - - - 4.4 kg
630-08-0 Carbon monoxide 1,472 - - - - 1,472 tonnes
463-58-1 Carbonyl sulphide 10 - - - - 10 tonnes
10049-04-4 Chlorine dioxide 106 - - - - 106 tonnes
NA - D/F Dioxins and furans - total 0.079 - - - - 0.079 g TEQ
206-44-0 Fluoranthene - PAH 38 - - - - 38 kg
118-74-1 Hexachlorobenzene 8.2 - - - - 8.2 grams
NA - 19 Hexavalent chromium (and its compounds) 7.9 - - - - 7.9 kg
7647-01-0 Hydrochloric acid 458 - - - - 458 tonnes
7783-06-4 Hydrogen sulphide 58 - - - - 58 tonnes
NA - 08 Lead (and its compounds) 31 - - - - 31 kg
NA - 09 Manganese (and its compounds) 0.090 - - - - 0.090 tonnes
NA - 10 Mercury (and its compounds) 1.7 - - - - 1.7 kg
67-56-1 Methanol 303 - - - - 303 tonnes
NA - 17 Nitrate ion in solution at pH >= 6.0 – - – - – - tonnes
11104-93-1 Nitrogen oxides (expressed as NO2) 1,087 – - – - 1,087 tonnes
85-01-8 Phenanthrene – PAH 125 – - – - 125 kg
108-95-2 Phenol (and its salts) 14 – - – - 14 tonnes
NA – 22 Phosphorus (total) 0.110 – - – - 0.110 tonnes
NA – M08 PM – Total Particulate Matter 335 – - – - 335 tonnes
NA – M09 PM10 – Particulate Matter < = 10 Microns 281 - - - - 281 tonnes
NA - M10 PM2.5 - Particulate Matter <= 2.5 Microns 192 - - - - 192 tonnes
129-00-0 Pyrene - PAH 29 - - - - 29 kg
7446-09-5 Sulphur dioxide 3,224 - - - - 3,224 tonnes
7664-93-9 Sulphuric acid 13 - - - - 13 tonnes
NA - M14 Total Reduced Sulphur (TRS) 154 - - - - 154 tonnes
NA - M16 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) 621 - 3.1 - - 624 tonnes
NA - 14 Zinc (and its compounds) 0.780 - - - - 0.780 tonnes
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Details of On-Site Releases to Water
CAS Number Substance Discharges Spills Leaks Total Units
208-96-8 Acenaphthylene - PAH - - - - kg
75-07-0 Acetaldehyde 0.390 - - 0.390 tonnes
NA - 16 Ammonia (total) 8.2 - - 8.2 tonnes
NA - 02 Arsenic (and its compounds) 52 - - 52 kg
218-01-9 Benzo(a)phenanthrene - PAH - - - - kg
NA - 03 Cadmium (and its compounds) 5.2 - - 5.2 kg
630-08-0 Carbon monoxide - - - - tonnes
463-58-1 Carbonyl sulphide - - - - tonnes
10049-04-4 Chlorine dioxide - - - - tonnes
NA - D/F Dioxins and furans - total - - - - g TEQ
206-44-0 Fluoranthene - PAH - - - - kg
118-74-1 Hexachlorobenzene - - - - grams
NA - 19 Hexavalent chromium (and its compounds) 43 - - 43 kg
7647-01-0 Hydrochloric acid - - - - tonnes
7783-06-4 Hydrogen sulphide - - - - tonnes
NA - 08 Lead (and its compounds) 26 - - 26 kg
NA - 09 Manganese (and its compounds) 24 - - 24 tonnes
NA - 10 Mercury (and its compounds) 0.520 - - 0.520 kg
67-56-1 Methanol 13 - - 13 tonnes
NA - 17 Nitrate ion in solution at pH >= 6.0 30 – - 30 tonnes
11104-93-1 Nitrogen oxides (expressed as NO2) – - – - tonnes
85-01-8 Phenanthrene – PAH – - – - kg
108-95-2 Phenol (and its salts) – - – - tonnes
NA – 22 Phosphorus (total) 25 – - 25 tonnes
NA – M08 PM – Total Particulate Matter – - – - tonnes
NA – M09 PM10 – Particulate Matter < = 10 Microns - - - - tonnes
NA - M10 PM2.5 - Particulate Matter <= 2.5 Microns - - - - tonnes
129-00-0 Pyrene - PAH - - - - kg
7446-09-5 Sulphur dioxide - - - - tonnes
7664-93-9 Sulphuric acid - - - - tonnes
NA - M14 Total Reduced Sulphur (TRS) - - - - tonnes
NA - M16 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) - - - - tonnes
NA - 14 Zinc (and its compounds) 0.470 - - 0.470 tonnes
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Substance CAS
Number On-Site
Releases Disposal Off-Site
Recycling Units Substance Information
>> Click on the icons below
On-Site Off-Site*
Details Details Details
Acenaphthylene – PAH 208-96-8 55 – - – kg
Acetaldehyde 75-07-0 17 – - – tonnes
Ammonia (total) NA – 16 58 – - – tonnes
Arsenic (and its compounds) NA – 02 61 12 158 – kg
Benzo(a)phenanthrene – PAH 218-01-9 9.3 – - – kg
Cadmium (and its compounds) NA – 03 9.6 61 16 – kg
Carbonyl sulphide 463-58-1 10 – - – tonnes
Chlorine dioxide 10049-04-4 106 – - – tonnes
Dioxins and furans – total NA – D/F 0.079 – 13 – g TEQ
Fluoranthene – PAH 206-44-0 38 – 0.070 – kg
Hexachlorobenzene 118-74-1 8.2 – 244 – grams
Hexavalent chromium (and its compounds) NA – 19 51 16 12 – kg
Hydrochloric acid 7647-01-0 458 – - – tonnes
Hydrogen sulphide 7783-06-4 58 – - – tonnes
Lead (and its compounds) NA – 08 57 326 398 – kg
Manganese (and its compounds) NA – 09 24 196 19 – tonnes
Mercury (and its compounds) NA – 10 2.3 0.070 1.6 – kg
Methanol 67-56-1 316 – - – tonnes
Nitrate ion in solution at pH >= 6.0 NA – 17 30 – - – tonnes
Phenanthrene – PAH 85-01-8 125 – 0.620 – kg
Phenol (and its salts) 108-95-2 14 – - – tonnes
Phosphorus (total) NA – 22 25 18 46 – tonnes
Pyrene – PAH 129-00-0 29 – 0.080 – kg
Sulphuric acid 7664-93-9 13 – - – tonnes
Total Reduced Sulphur (TRS) ** NA – M14 154 – - – tonnes
Zinc (and its compounds) NA – 14 1.3 24 2.3 – tonnes
OK, this is the last blog here for sure.
And I must say that with my emotional at times writing, with no back editing, one must dismiss the odd inaccuracies and generalizations and take out the key important points – of which there are many
As you can see, I have decided that the managing style of this Island and the Gulf Islands in general is irresponsible and has resulted in an unhealthy, unsafe and socio-economicaly-culturally imbalanced little culture here, whose past racial intolerance and greed has been replaced by gentrification and self-interest group induced intolerence and greed – different clothes same poor result.
I am writing again though just to expand on Crofton.
I just talked to my freind here who is a long term resident and his first reply was “Yes, but it is MUCH BETTER than before” – but the silly thing is that it is not BETTER enough!
If we can close down the East coast cod industry fore the sake of cods, but we can keep a pulp industry going that burns salted wood to save money and releases large amounts of poisons directly upon us – there is something wrong!!!
We can save a Cod but we can’t save poisoning Humans????
Well anyway, let me expand on Crofton:
1) firstly, in the 2006 pollution report fior Crofton, while they acknowledged that “parts” of Salt Spring were regularly exposed to the deadly gasses and water discharges, they did not put any monitors for the study on Salt Spring.
2) As I mentined “inaccuracies”, here is one: I said 7,000 tonnes of Dioxins I think but here is the detail:
that’s right 624 tonnes or about 1,248,000 pounds of “Volatile Organic Compounds” which either sit on the NW and west side of the Island and on NW days it drifts through the Vesuveus -Ganges rift/valley.
But remember, they didn’t put a monitor here, they put one at Crofton and one at Chemanus just South, but regardless that is the Volatile Organic Compounds.
Anticipated Releases
Year Anticipated Release (tonnes)
2009 625
2010 625
2011 625
Oh and the page noted:
Pollution Prevention (P2) Activities
No new pollution-prevention activities
Comments on Pollution Prevention Activities
The facility did not provide any comments.
Some others:
*Sulphur dioxide 3,224 – - – - 3,224 tonnes
*PM2.5 – Particulate Matter <= 2.5 Microns 192 – - – - 192 tonnes
*PM10 – Particulate Matter <= 10 Microns 281 – - – - 281 tonnes
*Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) 621 (from stack-poiunt source) – 3.1 (fugitive)- – 624 tonnes
For the others below, many are unknown, such as Acetaldehyde 14 – 2.1 – - 17 tonnes
Wow, only 17 tonnes or about 35,000 pounds of that stuff and although I don’t know aht it is her is what the Gov says about it:
CEPA 1999 Schedule 1 – List of Toxic Substances – This substance has been added to the List of Toxic Substances. It is entering or may enter the environment in a quantity or concentration or under conditions that:
b)
constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends.
c)
constitute or may constitute a danger in Canada to human life or health.
The list is sooooo long that I can’t go into it here on my last blog session, but do you get the point??????
It may be “better”, but guys, it makes me want to start making plans to move to Tofino or Sunshine Coast, because it is scary that Crofton isn’t even on your radars. You are so conscerned with the water level rising, you don’t think about thousands of tons of particulate and toxons landing on you every year.
If this was a municipality, then you would sue them for endangering our lives, but again, you don’t do that with bullshit well-meaning amateur committes. You take the bastards to court and tell them to start with stop burning salt waaod feul in their burners to save money and yes, even shutting down the pulp processding part of the industry until it is done better without poisoning people.
The problem is that you obviously have extremely low standards as an island to sit back and breath that shit with not even a whimper among you.
The same goes for protecting our waters and the gulf Islands Marine Reserve. You have a Municipality with an ecologist on staff. (Vancouver has an Environmental Division. You have useless committes going nowhere because you do not have the skills but naively think you can manage the Island and safegaurd the residents through “Volunteerism”.
So yes, you sue the governemnt for lettiing tankers sit and drop oil into the water while they sit and you sue the gypsom companies for using it as a parking lot.
It is well knon though that the Gulf Islands is a mess Marine wise and people even just leave boats and barges as wrecks which don’t get salvagesd because the Federal Government handles it I guess. Even though the disaster hurts your backyard. In fact it was a rescue tug from the US side which came, so we didn’t even have a response.
So what you have is a non-expert Islands Trust, who are unqualified to manage the Marine reserve and if it was done properly, the enviromental recomendations for the area would be followed before the residents opinions and if the federal government screwed up by allowing a gypsom barge to capsize and kill part of the ecosystem, then you sue the Governemnt for negligence.
BUt what I feel here now after 6 months living in the forest of this beautiful place, is that the vacationer residents are too busy enjoying their retirements to be bothered with such things and are more concerned with keeping out the hippie scallywags and rufians.
And by the way Salt Spring committes and self-interest groups, you have don an amazing job destroying the lower income hippie culture here by removing any lower income alternatives here.
Salt Spring is a classic case of passive cultural destruction, you just bylaw out and monopolize zoning in order to make no options for the poor to survive here.
And the racial intolerance of the past lives now as an economic/gentrified driven intolerance, where the “homeowners” and “Concerned Residents” have wiped out the lower income groups who now concentrate themselves in Trailer parks at Saint Mary’s Lake, Balckburn Lake and various other areas around the island, like gypsies.
My impression is that the “homeowners” and “Concerned Residents” have replaced the “good white folk mentality”, which has pervaided here throughout the 20th century and has become income-based descrimintation as opposed to the white euro-racists such as the concerned residents of salt spring who welcomed back the Murakamis in the 70s and who divided the stolen Japanese land amongst themselves only to become the monopoly landlords of the Islands Cultural and Social center, the Ganges village.
I have also heard the arguement that the Islands Trust keeps the control with “US” “THE PEOPLE” and we can’t give up that.
Unfortunatley that is an arrogant and naiive attitude to say that “WE” will control the destiny of the Islands, because you are in essence saying, let amateurs and non-experts, in a disorganized, non-centralized fashion, run the incredible wealth of Marine and Terrestrial, Animal and Human life in the Southern Gulf Islands and make a complete fucking mess of it – while patting yourselves on the back….:)
I guess it was from working at Vancouver City Hall, seeing the Legal experts, Zoning Experts, Planners, Environmental people etc…. who are there to edjucate and inform City Counsel to the details of issues, that it made me see how blind, amateur and incredibly naive you are to think it is OK to let the local volunteers decide and plan civic millions of dollars.
Just in the past 5 days, since I bagean this little critique if you will, I have seen just how non-expert the people and management structure of the Gulf Islands and Salt Spring is, if you notice the look at the Van pool budget or even the CRofton numbers, you people have no-one with qualifications to create and manage a safe and healthy community here for you and if you have kids, your children.
I could not sit on any committee here because it is a paid job and you need poaid people and a paid city/island hall.
OK, yes I am back, but only because I got cut off.
My point there was that AS I am a Structural and Architectural Draftsman and have Construction background, I was found to be qualified to work at City Hall as a PC1 or Project Coordinator 1. I can read and check certan building and development plans, BUT I am NOT qualified to decide on Zoning or land uses, I am not qualified to sit on the Board of Variance, desopite having 6 months of zoning and bylaw training. THose guys are 10 year people and high level Planners. And they get paid while on the Board.
Here, it would be negligent for me to be doing an audit on the new civic pool budget and even sitting on the Islands Trust, I would be sitting on a boards of amateurs with no Civic or Ecological Planners to give any advice.
The only answer for these Islands to be ran in a responsible and safe manner is for an internal governemt to be “in-House” and have experts “In-House”
The biggest problem with the Islands Trust office here, if it does have {Planners and people who understand Zoning) is that they are only enforcers whereas if they were within a City/Island(s) Hall, then they also become expert assets who are there to advise the elected officials.
And again, if the elected officials don’t listen to safe Planning advice and say, put a Propane gas facility near homes and schools and people get killed, then they are liable, like Walkerton ONtario- (anybody remember them???)
Here, as there are no paid in-house experts on the trust counsel or at the public meetings, it is an amateur show and there is no accountability.
Even now, with the past St. Mary’s eports last year saying it was inadequite (to say the least considering the points I brought up) There is no City/Islands Council or MUnicipality to sue if anyone gets poisoned or ends up with long term effects of improper watershed management (actually I see no management there. In fact, and I forgot this one, but yes planners and city Engneers (one of the MOST key experts a municipality uses – both civc and geological engineers are HUGE)
anyway, they would notice that the road grading isn’t really designed to make the oil-antifreeze etc…laden rain water road run-off to the side AWAY from the lake and diverted into a creek to go down towards ganges. But to do that you need to grade the road to slope away from the road and that would be way too much trouble I’m sure for whatever volunteer committee “mamages” the St. Mary’s watershed area.
You see, I am a beginner in the feild of Civic management and Civic Planners, and your Island and it’s “Trust” is the biggest MIckey Mouse operation I have ever seen. And it is shocking because Salt Spring has so many amazingly interesting and intelligent people but maybe eeven intelligent well-meaning people sometimes naively think that Civic Managemet and Development is something OK for volunteers to do. Unfortunatley they are wrong to everyone’s detriment, he issues here have to do with amateur civic management.
In the end, as I said, I would never want my kids attending high school here and getting hit walking off the non-existing sidewalk or getting blown up by a tank large enough to kill everyong within 500 feet or so if it exploded because it’s “I4″ zone was placed between a farm centre, a busy community recyle centre, a couple of family homes etc…..What a fucking mess…….
The saddest thing about this is that the chances of this being printed in the DRftwood Newspaper, the GUlf Islands paper, is almost non-existent, as the newspaper is more of a “feel-good” kind of community light-hearted thing with really no “watch-dog” personality, which newspapers traditionally have. So that is also sad, because that makes the chance of change even lees.
BUT, I am already eyeing Tofino anyway, but not before I paint the island first and reside here a wee buiut longer, but in the long run, it is a very sad long term picture for here.
Did I say I was finished, well, not really. Sort of in that I have put in the bulk of what I want to say, BUT, I intend to edit it in the near future and then print and nail it to every church door, Town hall, business, CRD office, Islands Trust, etc… that I can think of in order to properly get this off of my chest.
AND, I also haven’t insulted evryone on Salt Spring, so please let me continue. And please understand that while I could have tossed a pebble into the still/gentle waters of the Salt Spring collective conciousness, I have chosen to rather toss a large jaggeddy boulder in order to create an emotional response regarding to certain issues such as breathing poisonous air or drinking poorly managed watershed water etc…. and by the way, check out the Cushion lake road grades within the watershed and you’ll find the same inept or simply non-existent management scenario, all to the public detriment.
So yes, This will be a properly done “critique” if you will in the coming weeks and I will do as Martin Luther posted his “Ninety-Five Theses” on the castle church door in Wittenburg Germany on October 31st, 1517, for his own need to satifyhis own religious ethical conscience, I feel that I must do for my own Civic ethical concscience. And the “Civic” in the case of incorporating the Gulf Islands, also includes my Ecological ethical conscience, because we have no municipality to stop tankers and gypsom barges from parking in the “marine reserve, not to mention the dust fly-off from the barges polluting the local residents.
But yes, just to add a couple of more points that I forgot to add, just before I forget which will go into my final “Ninety-Five Theses” for Salt Spring.
1) Regarding my claim that not only the “homeowners” (that is actually a class on Salt Spring and I have seen a woman in JVC say to her friend, “so, how does it feel to be a “Homeowner now???” with so much pride, like “now your in our club”, which is the sort of gentrification crap, that most municipalities try to not allow to run their civic planning. Salt spring is however ran by these people. In the upcoming Riley Park rezoning planning in Vancouver, while the residents may guide the zoning somewhat, they are not the “architects” of it, the planners who work for city hall (not for a political party – VERY IMPORTANT – NOT POLITICAL) in other words, they give you the professional straight goods regarding what could or should be done in the zoning game. Not the residents.
A local the other day said to me that there was an idea to wake up “old Industrial zones” ande develop them and rent them out to the businesses that need them, he had all sorts of concepts regarding the advantage of industry on the Island etc…, but he doesn’t have any civic planning experience and is not thinking the the old I zone down at Boot cannal, is not a safe area for the nearby residents and it lises along the vesuvius-Ganges fault valley, so it probably would be recomended against by a Planner. It is moot to argue the point with him because it’s the “sat spring way”, get together with the neighbour, make it happen etc…
I am sorry but it is not the way to do it
IT is in that what happens is the local homeowners, concerned residents etc…. dictate to the Island’s trust what should be done, when the counsellors of a municipality are negligent if they only listen to self-interest groups and ignore the professional planners and engineers etc… in city hall who make recomendations. Here, if you have a Walkerton affair, you have no-one to blame but yourselves because you put nobody here was accountable. In fact the St. Mary’s Lake study has already said the system is “inadequite” and…anyway it is deplorable..
1.5) You are also soo disjointed that you don’t even have any local additions to the BC Building Code. In Richmond it is odten foundation issues/designs, specific tpo the 90ft or so of sand that the city mostly sits on, In Vancouver, you often see it in the Bog and fllod zones along SW Marine DR or in East van in places.
On Salt Spring, with million dollar homes, and even (and I am only assuming so correct me if I am wrong) there is NO!!!!! cistern(sp?) requirement in the building code, despite it being a water sensitive area and cisterns only un about $1 a gallon, so a home with a 5,000 gallon system, which I have heard of here, with the filters etc, does not run a lot in a home or even in a $300,000 condo like the ones off of Atkins Rd and Upper Ganges.
You even allow clear cutting of lots as per the owner’s whim. We alrerady saw a large number of trees come down at the top of Moet park after the last wind storm and it is no coincidence that the tress came down on the top edge of the forest which had been opend to being wind swept.
No Landscaping division/expert to stop it, but not rules anyway to prevent it, no engineers to plan your roads.
2) Regarding the conservatization of Salt Spring. It has become in many ways a “retirement” community and for this reason, the concept of having cheap street food in the village and even having some kind of “night-life” (bad word on Salt Spring) is an uphill battle.
The funny thing is though, because in the end, all of you retirees and homeowners, landowners who didn’t want a municipality and drove out any kind of night or street/community culture or economy: You end up hurting yourself. Let me explain:
The is a book called “The Brain That Changed Itself” (2007) and it is about the recent (since 2000 about) undertsanding of science of a thing in our brains called “Neuroplasticity”. It essentially says that when you learn something new and/or are exposed to new things, be it they be emotional experiences or whatever, you actually increase neural growth. They have even proven now that humans that force themselves to experience new things (and no, not just reading the paper each day – they actually showed that that is not enough) it lowers the chances of developing parkinsons or alzheimers, I forget which.
In other words, when my dad had a stroke in 1988 and went into a “rest” home where he still is and where I am now trying to try to stay out of by fighting my own MD issues, and the lack of activity in the place only bred more inactivity and atrophy, BOTH Mental and physical.
I said to a neighbour, “what Salt Spring needs is not “rest homes” but Boot Camps for the elderll”, my freind Adrian said “No, they need “RE-Boot” Camps!!”.
Well said Adrian, and creating a night life and a well balanced community having a wide range of people from economic states if you will, allowing lower income people to have a warm meal out in public is a social right and for the landowners and homeowners and elderly, you might even have an interesting conversation, meet someone new, heck, you might even get laid….:)!!!
But anyway, each to their own. My opoint is, “resting” both emotionally, intellectually and socially (and physically in that an evening walk in the market could be nice…) in your retiremnent is only going to make you die faster. And making Salt Spring into 4th Avenue Vancouver meets Amishtown with the hippes only a facade during tourist festivals, doesn’t help any of you.
That’s it for now.
Even in the begetable market near the libray, you see $3.50 a pound for organic (yes you used compost and no pesticides – big deal, you have no right to charge more…), while in Thrifties they Re $1.99. Apples for 50 cents each while the Okanagan ones are 15 cents. It is such a ripoff and such a slap in the face of those in the community that can’t afford it that it just looks like a bunch of aging hippeies with million dollar farms gouging the “homeowners”, who buy the goods because it is such a “country fresh” way to buy their vegetables.
4) Which reminds me, the Island’s Trust name seems to put a false sense of “trustfulness” in the concept, like “Justice League”, meanwhile the “Trust” is an amateur board of non-experts who manage you Gulf Islands world without “expertise”. And you trust that?
So, I am back just to continue formulating what will be the X number of Theses for Salt Spring Islands and for the sake of the Gulf Islands Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems, hopefully the Gulf Islands as a whole.
- There is presently a 5km or so wind blowing down the Vesuveus-Ganges valley from the NW. The weather Canada site says:
“Wind southeast 15 to 20 knots veering to southerly 5 to 15 this evening then increasing to northwest 15 to 20 early Wednesday morning.”.
So we are sucking Croften particles now and the ONLY way to properly fight them is to fight them in court as a Municipality or “Incorporated Islandship” or whatever you want to call it.
It is about Public Health. It is as simple as that. I have tried to show some of the reasons why it is healthier to run this 12,0000+ person multi-island community and the accompanying marine reserve eco-system with an “in-house” system of local experts who are ther to protect you and to tell the whole story to the elected representatives, who if they wish to not listen to the in-house experts, then they are liable for ignoring public health and safety and local eco-safety. This is why the counsellors will take the public self-interest groups into account, but the expert opinions are for everyones safety. If the local counsel ignores the city Civil or Geo-engineers or Planners regarding certain issues, then they are liable. If a Walkerton happened here right now, there is no one accountable except the Governemnt which allowed the system to be put in place, because the current system I am sure hass all the “Public Meetings” etc.. that it needs to have in order to perform it’s own mandate by law, so they are no liable. They (CRD or Trust) are just doing their jobs.
Some Health issues in a nutshell:
*)- The gulf Islands Marine Eco-Reserve (awesome name….:) which eats gypsom dust, tanker, Ferry, Cruise-ship oil/refuse, derelict barges etc… and God and Buddha knows what else.
*)- The CRofton Mill, which today is permeating the Vesuveus-Ganges Valley with as large assortment of particles and chemicals which despite not “smelling” and therefore is “much better”, it is absolutely unacceptable for these low-employee(unlike the old days) – high pollution output operations, to burn salt wood (hog feul I think they call it)knowing it is sending hundreds of thousands of pounds( see the numbers above…:( ) of dust over us – but it is allowed in order to improve the profit margin of their business model.
We actually let them poison us to improve their business model, despite the incredible wealth of intellect on this Island.
We saved the Cod on the East Coast but on the West Coast for the foreign owned (Weyerhauser- Catalyst Paper -US ) companies compromise your health for a better business model.
And it isn’t even on the Radar here.
*)- The School zone should be 30km from either end because you will end up enering the west end of the 30km zone at too high a speed and you are allowing a lesser safety speed allowance for the high-school kids despite their being minors and probably more likely to skateboard in to the road or push eachother etc…
I don’t get that one.
*)- The over-conservatizing of the island has homogenized the culture and removed all economic culture for the lower income residents who are many of the ones who service the “Homeowner” culture.
This has been to the detriment of both the lower income groups who have been bullied out by one-sided economy (no cheap breakfasts or sit down food outlets – Dagwood $8, Treehouse $11, etc…) and outdoor street night-life has been irradicated and at sundown winter or summer, Salt Spring rolls up the sidewalks and ganges is a Ghost town. Night time food spots are all out of the price range of lower income or backpacker incomes, so it is crated an homogenized coffee shop culture, who like the other gouger businesses don’t even do the $1 kids hot chocolate like at Starbucks.
*)- This zoning and managing of the island in the past 20 years especially, has Homogenized Salt Spring Culture as is clearly personified by Ganges, as mentioned earlier, the knowledge these days of “Neuro-Plasticity” basically makes Salt Spring into a place which is getting stupider and stupider because you have created a place with as little stimulation as possible, which according to neuroplasticity, you have created a world to make you stupider by giving yourself nothing interesting in the community worth going out for after dark because there is nothing except med-higher priced establishments, so if you do go out, you don’t meet anyone new so you create a world of less stimulation.
Not to mention the fact (ok I did mention it) that getting out in the evening may burn some calories and may even give you a more vibrant life here and even increase the longevity of the vibrancy.
*)- This “Rest Home” mentality, which results in social, intellectual, neuralogical, sexual, and her on Salt Spring cultural “Atrophy”, has created a rest home culture on this island and to all you over 50ers, it is not doing you any good whatsoever. While we all need good sleep, you need to push your body and brain a bit each day and you should not live your life in a state of “Rest”. We will all have lots of time to rest in peace eventually, so don’t squander it now.
*)- Another problem in addition to the “Rest Island” mentality is the culture who want to push the Farming aspects of the Island and feel that it should also include an almost Amish-like “don’t change anything” attitude in the area of development, and “keep the village the way it is”
*)- Let me tell you, the village is mostly drab, circa 80s cond0-like architecture, built as ergonomically and without architectural ornamentation in order to make it look as drab as possible, which was the 80s condo design ethic “keep it drab in order not to offend anybody, and that is how it looks.
The funny/sad thing though is that there is no “Heritage ” desicnation here, so despite the wanting to make it look so “traditional and quant – you don’t have the infrastructure to protect the incredible history of this island.
*)- So that is it as far as now I will start editing this into “theses” and as I said, I will nail it to every church door and tape it to the Driftwood, CRD etc…) and then I have given my opinion of the ludicracy of not being incorporated here.
And if an Islandship Hall does ever happen, I will be the first to put in my application.
regards.
TC