Tower trouble Gabriola residents concerned regarding radio proposal. PAGE 5 Supertanker risks Events aim to educate public about the hazards. PAGE 22 Home course Sandy Harper claims provincial crown on familiar ground. PAGE 3
Chainsaw pioneer PAGE 7
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TTree vandalism leaves residents ‘flummoxed’ Girdling severly damages cedars
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VOL. 24, NO. 36
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‘Terminal Trench’ project moves ahead on Phase 1
BY TOBY GORMAN THE NEWS BULLETIN
A tree assassin is at work in Nanaimo’s Eaglepoint neighbourhood, and Roberta Bogle is trying to understand why. Last winter, Bogle and her husband Doug Anthony, while working along their fence line, noticed somebody had girdled three cedar trees. This past weekend, they discovered a 10-metre cedar on their front lawn had been girdled three metres up the trunk. “Somebody climbed up and used a saw to destroy our tree,” she said. “We’re a little flummoxed as to why.” Last year, Bogle and Anthony removed a large pine and another cedar that had failed along the fence line, but they never thought to look for signs of vandalism. Now they’re convinced somebody in their own neighbourhood, perhaps a person seeking a better ocean view from their home, is responsible. “It’s a little unnerving to think somebody who lives around here might be responsible, but what other explanation is there?” she said. Girdling, also called ring barking, is the removal of a strip of bark from around either the trunk of the tree or a branch. ◆ See ‘NORTH-END’ /7
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Darren Moss, chairman of the Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association’s planning, design and development committee and project manager for the Terminal Avenue redevelopment, overlooks the area once known as the ‘Terminal Trench’. In Phase 1 of the project, the possibility of contaminated soil under the thoroughfare through downtown Nanaimo will be assessed with a $217,500 provincial grant.
Somebody climbed up and used a saw to destroy our tree.
CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Provincial funding will help downtown association assess potential pollution beneath corridor BY CHRIS HAMLYN
P
roponents of redevelopment along Terminal Avenue and Nicol Street corridor hope there is strength in numbers. The Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association received a $217,500 provincial grant to initiate Phase 1 of its planning, design and development committee’s project to overcome the challenges inhibiting business growth opportunities along the corridor. Known as the Terminal Trench, the corridor was once a ravine running from the Pearson Bridge to Port Place shopping centre. It became the dumping ground in 1891 for not
only debris from coal mines, but garbage from the community, and was eventually filled in by the early 1920s. The likelihood of contaminated soil beneath the nearly 100 properties lining the streets was an impediment to the corridor’s development for a number of years. Darren Moss, committee chairman and project manager, said discovering what’s underneath the roads and how to deal with it could be a daunting task for individual property owners – so the committee is taking it on. See ‘HISTORICAL’ ‘ /11
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