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| Thursday, January 24, 2013
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‘Sustainable’ Farming at High School
Critics blast blueberry ‘cannons’ By DAN FERGUSON Aldergrove Star
HARRY HUNT PHOTO
Aldergrove Secondary students Brandon Sparham (left) and Kyler Croucher grind dried corn into corn meal, using bike power. The sustainable living class at the school, augmented by support from David Catzel (inset photo, below at left) of Aldergrove’s Glorious Organics Farm, provides students with the opportunity to learn how to grow and process their own foods.
There were 25 speakers at a Thursday night public meeting about blueberry cannons in Langley, all of them critical. They said the noisemakers used to scare away berry-munching birds are disturbing to people, horses and pets and most demanded an outright ban. “They are depriving me of my right to farm,” said John Reid, one of many horse facility owners to speak. The constant noise during the blueberry growing season is driving down property values, Reid said. “I can’t sell my place,” Reid said. “Not for what it should be used.” Alicia Harper, vice president of membership and marketing for the Horse Council of B.C., said the cannons are especially damaging in Langley, often called the “horse capital of B.C.” The devices are “equally effective at scaring horses as birds,” Harper said, going on to call horses a “prey species” whose natural tendency when startled or frightened is to flee. Carol Hauta, who lives near three John Reid was among blueberry farms that use propane can25 speakers against nons, said friends and family won’t the use of propane come out for summer barbecues at her cannons at a Thursday place during the summer because of night meeting. the noise. Sometimes, she said, it feels like she is living in a “war zone.” “In the middle of the growing season when we have our door and windows open to enjoy the summer weather, all we can hear is the boom of propane cannons and the screech of noise scare devices,” Hauta said. She said people living in rural areas should be entitled to same right to peace and quiet as their urban counterparts. “If your neighbours were having a large and very noisy party, so loud it was disruptive to the entire neighbourhood, you have the right to call the police, who in turn have the responsibility to make sure your neighbours are following the noise by-laws,” Hauta told the hearing. Rob Jandric told the hearing he was a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who finds the noise of the cannons especially stressful. “I’ve hit the deck a number of times,” Jandric said. SEE: Page 3
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