CASTLEGAR NEWS Your Horoscope For the Week with Michael O’Connor inside the West Kootenay Advertiser
Chamber of Commerce welcomes exec. director See Page A9
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Trish Dehnel, community energy officer, and Dale Littlejohn (via phone), executive director, Community Energy Association, gave a presentation at Monday’s Castlegar city council meeting outlining the city’s commitment to being part of CNK (Carbon Neutral Kootenays). The slideshow pointed out that Castlegar signed on to the voluntary climate action charter several years ago committing, among other things, to be carbon neutral in its operation by 2012. “We’re here to talk about the Carbon Neutral Kootenay project and to help Castlegar understand the Measure-ActLead of the project,” said Dehnel. “They’ve been measuring their emissions, they’ve been acting by doing things to reduce both their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and the next step is to lead by being carbon neutral as per their commitment.” In 2010, Castle-
Vol.9 • Issue 51
Breaking news at castlegarnews.com
Thursday, December 20 • 2012
Trish Dehnel Craig Lindsay photo
gar had 499 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The city can purchase offsets from Pacific Carbon Trust at $25/tonne, or, as recommended by CNK, purchase locally created offsets in the Darkwoods forest conservation project, which is located between Nelson and Creston. “We are talking about a joint procurement to purchase offsets through the Darkwoods project at probably about $15/ tonne,” said Dehnel. “It would be a cheaper option to purchase offsets and therefore become carbon neutral. We know it’s unrealistic in our society to completely be zero, so what you’re doing is you purchase offsets to assist other parts of the world and other communities to re-
duce their emissions.” Dehnel praised the local effort. “Castlegar has done some really great things,” she said. “The new city hall has reduced emissions; they’re really working on their fleet; they’ve put in LED streetlights.” Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff says its a great project that the city is glad to get behind. “We’re involved with climate change with all the little things we do in the community,” he said. “This is all part and parcel to becoming carbon neutral. Really, there is no cost because the care grant fits in there and it balances out. The idea is we’ll be carbon neutral as of 2012 once we pay those offsets. It’s a great program. It’s great to see the Darkwoods project emerge. Before, everything went to Pacific Carbon Trust and really just disappeared. It’s really about helping out locally. Now we’re looking at – is there are projects even more local that we can be involved with.”
Catch an assortment of kids’ letters to Santa See Pages A13-A21
Craig Lindsay photo
Craving greater clarity CRAIG LINDSAY Castlegar News Reporter
The Ministry of Transportation has completed work on the Minto Road and Columbia Avenue (Highway 22) intersection by The Brick and Trowelex. The project began on Oct. 9 and cost approximately $1.9 million. Kevin Chernoff, Castlegar city councillor and manager of Trowelex, is pleased to see the work done but is concerned about the lack of signage. “They finished about three to four weeks ago,” he said.
“They’ve introduced a dedicated left hand turn lane if you’re coming from Trail to make it a little safer as you’re turning onto Minto Road. My complaint is the signage after the project was finished.” Chernoff would like to see more signs in the area to alert drivers about the new changes to the traffic patterns. “They have installed a few more signs in the past three or four days, but still have some work to come,” he said this week. “People seem to be confused with the
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signage that was here before, because they’re used to something that had been here for a long time. “But now we’ve changed traffic patterns and people are really finding it confusing. In fact, I’ve had a few anonymous phone calls from people complaining about coming out of Blueberry and different issues like that.” Chernoff said Ministry of Transportation representatives had told him they would meet Wednesday (Dec. 19) and discuss the issue.
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