The Chilliwack
Progress Thursday
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A Japanese taste for blueberry honey means business here.
Groups joy voices for seasonal offerings .
Hills back in form as Chiefs offence soars.
Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • T H U R S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 9 , 2 0 1 2
NDP urges health authority to buy local But Chilliwack MLA John Les says ‘it’s not that easy’ Robert Freeman The Progress
The NDP is calling on the B.C. government to step into food procurement by hospitals that neighbour on key food-producing areas of the province like the Fraser Valley. NDP Leader Adrian Dix said in a news release that an FOI request sent to the Fraser Health Authority showed “there are no formal policies in place that involve the provincial government using its Health authorities purchasing power to promote locally are trying to focus grown food in area though as much of their hospitals, they neighbor budget as they can key areas of the Agricultural Land on patient care Reserve.” wever, ~ MLA John Les theH oFHA’s food purchases are handled by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. “We don’t track the locally sourced food items simply because they are seasonal and we always buy in season through our contractor Gordon Food Services,” said Anna Marie D’Angelo, senior media relations officer at the VCHA. She said local menu items served fresh include fruits and vegetables such as carrots, apples, peaches, blueberries and all the berries, green beans and broccoli. Chilliwack MLA John Les, a dairy farmer turned politician, said it’s all very well to encourage individuals to buy locally, but the quantities required by health authorities and the seasonal nature of produce makes it a more complicated matter. “I’m not aware of any producer in the Fraser Valley is geared up or able to produce food in the way or in those quantities and at the price health authorities can afford,” he said.
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About 80 people came out to Kinder Morgan’s public info session at the Best Western on Tuesday evening to find out more about the proposed pipeline expansion. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Trans Mountain defends pipeline safety Information meeting on proposed pipeline expansion Robert Freeman The Progress
Jonathon Wood, a 27-yearold Chilliwack resident training to be a heavy equipment operator, is one of many in the Fraser Valley that Trans Mountain hopes to convince that its pipeline expansion proposal is a good idea. “I’m against it because of the risk,” Wood said, at an info session held Tuesday in Chilliwack. “I know they’re doing their best, but if something does happen,” he said, the potential ecological damage to water ways and water sources will “affect a lot of other industries and hurt our economy.”
And Chilliwack will see little of the economic benefits of twinning the pipeline, he believes, while accepting double the risk of a spill. Clean potable water will soon outstrip the value of oil, he predicted, so sources like Chilliwack’s underground aquifer should not be placed in any risk. “Water is worth a lot more than oil,” he said. “We can live without oil, we can’t live without water.” But Greg Toth, director of Trans Mountain’s expansion project, said a new “horizontal directional drill” will be used to bore under water ways like the Fraser River. “We actually won’t do any
$1.25 1-12T CS17
in-stream work,” he said. As for the Chilliwack aquifer, he said, an issue raised by local government as well as the public, Trans Mountain has a “well-established safety program” called the “pipeline integrity management program” to ensure a quick response to a spill. “I think people should feel comfortable that our pipeline is safe,” he said. Trans Mountain has “an excellent safety record,” he added, and the $4.3-billion project must pass a number of environmental and socioeconomic assessments that will be submitted to the National Energy Board for approval.
“We have had spills along the pipeline,” Toth said, but only eight recordable spills (over 9.5 barrels) in 50 years and only two spills in the last 30 years, one of those a “pinhole leak” detected by a local farmer. “If we do have a spill or an incident along the pipeline, we have a very vigorous internal investigation program and we look at the cause of the spill and do everything we can to correct it and prevent it from happening again.” Routing of the proposed pipeline is another issue raised at the series of public info sessions – 36 over two months – that Trans Mountain is holding in the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland. Continued: PIPELINE/ p5