Up front: Prominent car dealer sells business that bears his name page 3 Cowichan family: Families hiring photographer to record the birth page 10 For all the news of the Cowichan region as it happens, plus stories from around British Columbia, go to our website www.cowichannewsleader.com Your news leader since 1905
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Dirty dirt dump gets draft OK Shawnigan Lake: Ministry of Environment issues draft permit for controversial storage and treatment operation in area watershed drinking water, toxicity to soil invertebrates and plants and News Leader Pictorial groundwater Àow to surface water used by freshwater raft approval of aquatic life,” the draft states. a contaminated Soils allowed for bio-remesoil dump and diation — in engineered, lined treatment site in land¿lls cells to contain run-off the Shawnigan Lake watershed has intensi¿ed — include those fouled with hydrocarbons (fuel), benzene, fear among Shawnigan Lake toluene, ethylbenzene, styrene, residents their drinking water and other comcould be polluted. pounds. A draft permit It is not clear how released to the public closely the draft by the Ministry of Enpermit mirrors SIA’s vironment yesterday original application. is the ¿rst step in the Company spokesapproval of a controperson Marty Block versial proposal that was unavailable would allow South for comment at Island Aggregates Ltd. Bruce Fraser: press time, but has Flagrant disregard to store and treat soil maintained from the in a lake-area quarry beginning the proper at 640 Stebbings Rd. safeguards are in place. “It’ll render Shawnigan Lake Despite this, potential poluseless and dead, and we can’t lution of the lake and aquifer allow that,” resident Rick Restworry Restell, a three-year ell said of the draft permit carrying a 14-day comment period resident and businessman. “There’s no question this stuff to the environment ministry. If that period turns up no new will end up in the lake,” the grandfather of three said. “One information, a permit is exchance in a billion would be too pected to be approved for the dumping of 100,000 tonnes of many. This is about drinking soil annually, pending a formal water for 7,000 people.” Restell has emailed minis30-day appeal period. That permit would allow SIA ter Terry Lake and Premier Christy Clark asking them to to “receive, treat, utilize and disallow the permit. land¿ll contaminated soil and He’s also asking if Cowichan ash to the cavity created by an candidates running in B.C.’s advancing hard rock quarry.” May 14 election will risk legal Industrial soil proposed action from SIA to yank the for dumping and treatment permit, if granted. must meet the most stringent “The NDP’s been quiet on applicable site speci¿c facts this issue. It’s the MLA’s job to de¿ned in the Environmental protect us, is it not?” Procedures Manual “considmore on page 5 ering groundwater used for Peter W. Rusland
D
Rob Patterson
Rescue crews haul the Volvo from which a man was ejected to his death early Saturday along the Malahat, marking Cowichan’s second highway tragedy in 24 hours.
Highway not blamed on latest Malahat fatality First death of the year: Victoria man killed after car leaves highway and rockets into the trees Peter W. Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
V
ictoria’s Ian David Slaco, 44, has been identi¿ed as the man killed early Saturday on the Malahat highway, the B.C. Coroners Service con¿rmed Tuesday. “Mr. Slaco was driving north on Highway 1 over the Malahat in the early morning hours of March 16 when his car went out of control and over an embankment,” island regional coroner Matt Brown’s email states. Slaco was found deceased at the scene, Brown notes of the Malahat’s ¿rst victim of 2013. Slaco was ejected from a Volvo car along a divided stretch of highway, Malahat Vol-
unteer Fire Hall’s chief, Rob Patterson, said. He believed the crash happened some three hours before it was discovered by a highways worker. “It involved a green, Volvo SX-70, fairly new,” he told the News Leader Pictorial. “It was northbound and went off near 3932 Trans-Canada Highway. “There was a brief bit of a skid mark on the highway. He connected with the concrete no-post on the side of the road, then travelled about 150 feet, impacted with a rock, and went into the trees. “During those micro-seconds the driver was ejected,” Patterson said. A police dog squad was called to search for other passengers, while ¿re¿ghters used heat-seeking gear to also help locate other
patients. None, however, turned up. “We just closed the slow lane and kept traf¿c Àowing the whole time,” Patterson said. A B.C. coroner, and an RCMP traf¿c analyst also arrived to respectively tend to the body, and decipher the crash’s cause. “The vehicle and patient had been lying there for about three hours, in a fairly dark stretch,” the veteran ¿re chief said. “A (Mainroad contracting) guy saw some reÀective markers smashed off the end of a median, and he discovered the scene.” That’s also when Mounties were dealing with a drunk driver around Goldstream “so they were on scene by the time we got there.” more on page 7
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