Tuesday August 7, 2012 (Vol. 37 No. 63)
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
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S O U T H
S U R R E Y
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Olympic fever: Two years after getting an up-close Olympic experience in Vancouver, South Surrey’s Sandra Tice is in London, n, getting a taste of the Summer Games ass a volunteer in the athletes’ village. see page 17
Footprint ‘small’ for grocery
Options mulled for IGA Alex Browne Staff Reporter
Central Plaza merchants enthused at the prospect of an IGA store coming to the shopping centre – originally planned for this spring – are going to have to be patient a while longer. The store is still coming to White Rock, but plans are up in the air as far as the physical form it will take, according to H.Y. Louie IGA representative Scott Coburn. Coburn said Friday he could not yet supply a ❝The site timeline for opening the presents new store, planned for opportunities, space vacated by Shopbut it’s also pers Drug Mart more a very small than a year ago. “We’re reviewing exactly location for a what we feel we wish to usual grocery put in that location,” he said. store.❞ Merchants had celScott Coburn ebrated the announceH.Y. Louie ment in December that the company had signed a lease for the property, with a projected opening in May. Since the departure of Shoppers Drug Mart, which moved across the street to South Surrey’s Semiahmoo Shopping Centre, walk-by traffic has diminished considerably, merchants say. White Rock Business Improvement Association executive director Sherri Wilson Morissette said that while she had heard the new IGA store is going ahead, she had also heard the company has been trying to negotiate more space at Central Plaza. Coburn acknowledged that space is an issue. “The site presents opportunities, but it’s also a very small location for a usual grocery store – it’s not a very big footprint,” he said. “We’re trying to cope with that and we’re still exploring options and figuring out where to put displays – and there are all kinds of building conditions to consider,” he said.
Dan Ferguson photos
Left, one of the final wheelbarrow loads of gravel is dumped into Fergus Creek Thursday (Aug. 2) as part of a revitalization project to encourage salmon spawning in the South Surrey waterway. Above, one of the young workers on the Fergus Creek project plants a tree.
Fergus Creek restoration ‘about creating ripples’
Helping salmon go with the flow Dan Ferguson Staff Reporter
As the last wheelbarrow loads of gravel rattled down a sheet of plywood into Fergus Creek Thursday afternoon, Bob Donnelly was explaining why 88 tons of rock have been added to the South Surrey salmon habitat. It’s all about creating ripples, the president of the Semiahmoo Fish and Game Club said. “Salmon only spawn in the ripples,” Donelly noted. Adding gravel will result in the right sort of ripples and create an “ideal spawning ground,” he said. Volunteers from the club, along with the
d in the Watch for the Crosswor tion! Thursday, August 9 Edi
City of Surrey’s Salmon Habitat Restoration Program (SHaRP) youth teams, were hauling gravel and planting trees to make the creek, located near 14 Avenue and King George Boulevard, more hospitable to salmon. All that gravel had to be hauled along the narrow creekside paths by wheelbarrow, Donelly said, and it was the young ShaRP workers who shouldered most of the burden. “It was a massive amount of work,” he said. The river gravel was spread along 170 metres of the creek, a tributary of the Little Campbell River. The land around the area is owned by
the West Winds Strata Council, which agreed to let the workers in. The project was supervised by Fisheries and Oceans. A press release from the club described the addition of the gravel as the final step in the creek restoration. Construction of a new storm water diversion by the City of Surrey has helped by directing high-flow storm water away from the creek while maintaining base flow. So has a Department of Highways “salmon-friendly” repair of the Highway 99 culvert, the release notes. see page 4
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