THURSDAY
S I N C E
1 8 9 5
AUGUST 8, 2013
Roller derby double-header rolls out
Vol. 118, Issue 124
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PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
Village stocked for festival city Groundwater TECK
BY SHERI REGNIER
testing begins
Times Staff
How does Salmo maintain its composure when 12,000 people descend on the village for a five-day music festival every August? Shambhala, an electronic music festival, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this summer. What started as a small gathering of people at the “Salmo River Ranch” has grown into 10,000 guests attending from Canada, the United States and Europe. That many people travelling to a 1,000-person town is, for the most part, good for the community. Most Salmo businesses maintain they see triple the foot traffic and that regular sales quadruple in the span of a week. Kathleen Lins, a five-year cashier at the Salmo Pump (Esso) station located at the junction of Highways 3 and 6, took a few minutes to step away from a long queue of customers loading up with Gatorade and water. Lins said the store’s 15-person staff put in extra hours to keep shelves full with four times the usual stock of water, juice and snack foods. “We are used to how many people come into town for the festival,” she said. “So we know how to prepare for the onslaught by giving our staff a lot more hours and ordering way more supplies ahead of time.” Further into town, Salmo Foods manager, Jim Speirs, said he sees a marked increase in the amount of fruits, vegetables and bottled drinks sold during the five-day event. “This is about the only time of year you can sell water in Salmo,” he said. The whole foods store extends its hours during the festival, but once people leave for Shambhala grounds, business slows. “Since they’ve taken the Greyhound bus depot away from next door, not much happens downtown anymore,” he explained. “Although each year we see new faces surprised to find our type of store, ‘way out in the country,’” he laughed. Although Shambhala is great for Salmo businesses, it can tap into the village’s resources, according to the village mayor. Ann Henderson said the quick influx of festival-goers is “like lifting up everyone in Nelson and dropping them into Salmo.” “What we are finding is they are camping in our parks without paying,” she said. “Salmo should receive some
BY SHERI REGNIER Times Staff
SHERI REGNIER PHOTO
In an organization as old as Teck, little pieces of history are bound to turn up in the city it lies next to. Teck Trail Operations will be drilling test wells in downtown Trail, beginning Friday, to test the city’s groundwater for historical contaminants. The samples taken from the monitoring wells this weekend will assess if heavy metals, such as ammonia or sulphur, have leached into the groundwater that leads to the shores of the Columbia River. Elevated levels of heavy metals in groundwater have been traced back to the period between 1950 and 1985, when warm solutions were stored in unlined ponds for long periods of time. Some of the contaminants seeped into the ground and began a very slow getaway under the city and into the river. As part of Teck’s final remediation plan to Environment Canada, an overall groundwater assessment has been underway since 2001. In 2012, Teck submitted the company’s final cleanup plan and is now putting it into action. “A drill rig will be used to access the groundwater table,” said Catherine Adair, Teck’s community relations leader, adding, “samples will be collected from the wells and sent for a laboratory analysis.” The results will be compiled later this fall and if further steps are required, remediation planning activities will start in 2014. “Trail Operations will be keeping the community informed throughout the overall groundwater assessment and remediation process,” said Adair. Five locations in the downtown have been chosen based on accessibility. See EXPECT, Page 3
Brandon Engell (left) and Braydon Hopkins took a ten-hour bus trip from Calgary to be part of Shamhbala Music Festival. They rolled into Salmo with plenty of provisions to get them through the five-day event. compensation for our staff cleaning out village garbage bins three times a day instead of once a week, and beefing up our police presence.” Finding KP Park washrooms trashed Tuesday night is the kind of thing that gives the festival a bad name, she said, though there is such a positive side. Shambhala organizers responded Wednesday afternoon, sending staff to assist in cleaning up the park and offering to help clean the community, said Kandy Schroder, Salmo’s deputy clerk/
secretary. As the Greyhound bus pulled away from the Esso station early Wednesday morning, a group of festival goers were stretching their limbs and getting ready to walk or hitch a ride to the ranch, six kilometres down the highway. First time attendees Nadi Zaharieva and partner Daniel Sullivan, said their three-day bus trip from Ontario was definitely worth the wait to be a part of such a large gathering. See TICKET, Page 3
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