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KELOWNA’S Jessica Keca is headed for Calgary, invited to the Team Canada national women’s hockey team under-18 selection camp.
THEATRE among the vines offers opportunity to experience Shakespeare comedy The Two Gentlemen Of Vernona outdoors at The Vibrant Vine.
WESTBANK First Nation says the Nancee Way underpass, originally to have been completed in June, will now be done by later this fall.
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THURSDAY August 2, 2012 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
â–ź AGRICULTURE
â–ź CRIME
Rain wreaks havoc on cherry crops
Okanagan cops in line of fire during chase
Judie Steeves STAFF REPORTER
vehicle that was struck with bullets Tuesday after Mounties attempted to make a routine stop of a green Dodge Caravan. Three suspects were later taken into custody at Swan Lake, north of Vernon (right photo). Kathy Michaels STAFF REPORTER
One woman is in hospital and her two cohorts behind bars, following a police chase that scattered bullets from West Kelowna to Vernon. Local Mounties and the New Westminster police are currently investigating separate legs of a chase that started Tuesday just after 1:30 p.m. on Boucherie Road, and car-
ried on for nearly 70 kilometres to Swan Lake in Vernon. Although police have failed to release further information on the incident since that night, what’s clear is that the dramafraught drive started when police attempted to stop the “suspicious� green Dodge Caravan with two men and one woman inside. “They fired shots at the (West Kelowna)
JENNIFER SMITH/CONTRIBUTOR
RCMP, then the suspects fled on Westside Road,� said Const. Kris Clark. As the chase continued, the stakes got higher, and police officers found themselves in the path of more bullets. Although these reports
have yet to be confirmed, it’s believed Cpl. Richard Gringas, with the North Okanagan RCMP detachment, was most seriously at risk. Once it was clear the van was headed to Vernon, Gringas head-
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ed south down Westside Road to cut them off. Instead he found himself being chased. The suspects allegedly shot a number of rounds
See Chase A7
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jsteeves@kelownacapnews.com
WADE PATERSON/CAPITAL NEWS
POLICE OFFICERS examine an unmarked RCMP
McCurdy Rd.
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More than a million dollars in losses have been sustained by the tree fruit industry due to rain and hail storms in the Okanagan in the past couple of weeks reports the provincial agriculture ministry’s production insurance branch. Some growers have lost their entire crop of cherries as the result of a series of storms that tore through the valley the last half of July. General manager Byron Jonson says there were 10 distinct hail events and a lot of small storms in the past two weeks. In particular, hail and rain devastated some areas both Friday, July 20, and Friday, July 27, while inbetween multiple storms inflicted various levels of damage in different areas. Worst hit was the south Okanagan where there are overall moderate to severe losses to the cherry crop, he said. Rain has caused more damage than hail, because when too much moisture hits a warm, ripening cherry it plumps it up too much—until the skin can’t stretch any more—and it splits, rendering the fruit unfit for consumption. Some varieties of cherries are more prone to damage from splitting when it rains just as fruit is ripening, while some of the newer varieties developed at the Pacific Agri-food Research Centre in Summerland are resistant to such damage. Jonson said there was also some damage to peaches, but it’s too early to say whether any of the apple or pear crops were damaged by the hail. He estimated there are around 350 producers in the southern part of the valley who were affected by the stormy weather. At this point, however, he said growers are required to file a notification with the production insurance branch to say they may have sustained a loss, but often it’s not yet known how widespread that loss is, or whether there was definitely any damage. There were significantly fewer growers in the northern half of the valley who sustained damage, although there were still some who lost their entire crop, he said. It had been estimated this year’s crop would be larger than usual, but this will reduce the overall amount of cherries that will head to market.
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