B.C. Views Towns tackle modern problems. p6
Flying squirrel gets helping hand. p8
THE NEws
Arts&life steeves dances her way to worlds. p26
www.mapleridgenews.com wednesday, september 12, 2012 · serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢
tired of deteriorating downtown Downtown businesses want the area cleaned up by Phil M elnyc h u k staff reporter
Alicja Wnorowski is not a heartless person. She cares about the homeless people, such as the oldtimer who’s sitting bent over on the park bench down the street from her Cutting Image Hair Design shop on Selkirk Avenue, Tuesday morning. She knows the guy and has seen him around for years and he doesn’t bother her, she says. What does bother her, though, is the constant parade of sex-trade workers and drug addicts in front of her little shop, just west of 224th Street in downtown Maple Ridge, where she’s been the past 11 years. “It’s frustrating. It’s absolutely frustrating,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of being afraid of those people and what they’re going to do next.”
Colleen Flanagan/the news
Going green Volunteers plant trees and shrubs on a Cliff Avenue property as part of TD Tree Days event Sunday. see story, p12.
see Downtown, p3
Stench sends folks into frenzy Farmer spread rotting manure on airport field by M o ni s ha M a r tin s staff reporter
A farm was sniffed out as the source of a foul smell that enveloped Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge last week. The odour generated more than 200 calls to the Surrey ECOMM dispatch centre Thursday and Friday, including 35 calls to 911. Pitt Meadows public works depart-
ment received another 40 calls. Residents complained the air smelled like faeces or rotting cabbage, while others pointed fingers at a sewage treatment plant across the Fraser River in Langley, or believed there was a gas leak in their neighbourhood. The smell even drifted across the Fraser River into Langley and north Surrey. Ken Joyner and his wife found the odour so nauseating on Friday they contemplated staying in a hotel over night. “I’ve lived here 60 years, but this was stronger than anything I’ve ever smelled,” said Joyner.
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“We had our windows and doors closed and it was still coming right through the house.” The barrage of complaints had staff from Fortis BC, the Maple Ridge fire department, the district’s public works department and Metro Vancouver driving across Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge and even over the Port Mann Bridge to check pump stations, sewage pipes and a landfill to pinpoint the source of the stench on Thursday. Pitt Meadows operations superintendent Randy Evans knew who to blame for stink, but said no one
from Maple Ridge or Metro Vancouver contacted him until late Thursday. The fetid smell came from a farm on property between Harris and Baynes roads that belongs to the Pitt Meadows airport, where a mixture of mushroom, steer and poultry products was recently sprayed. The extra warm weather and light winds enhanced the odour. Airport manager Glenn Ralph was rather shocked to hear the smell generated so many complaints. see Stench, p15
Index Opinion Letters Looking Back seniority Arts&life sports Classifieds
6 7 18 23 26 32 35
L
ive chicken dumped at KFC, now at sPCA. see story, p5
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