Wednesday November 6, 2013 www.saobserver.net $1.25 GST INCLUDED
I’ll get you, my pretty Keren Huyter, as the Wicked Witch of the West, snarls for the camera while walking with her family along the Downtown Salmon Arm Halloween Treat Trail. For more images from the events downtown, check out page A12.
LACHLAN LABERE/OBSERVER
Infighting clouds water project
SLIPP: Directors disagree on the future direction of Shuswap watershed management activities. By Barb Brouwer OBSERVER STAFF
SLIPP could be disappearing beneath the waves of controversy. The three-year Shuswap Lake Integrated Planning Process pilot project will end on March 31, 2014. The majority of the members of the SLIPP steering committee agreed to move ahead with water-quality monitoring and a lake safety program for the entire Shuswap Watershed. But Columbia Shuswap Regional District Area F North
Shuswap director Larry Morgan is vehement in his opposition – as is the president of the North Shuswap Chamber of Commerce Dave Cunliffe. It is this opposition that frustrates Mike Simpson, senior regional manager for the Fraser Basin Council Thompson Region and SLIPP program manager, who says there is general consensus for a watershed-based program with a more limited focus. Mirroring the opinions of the North Shuswap Chamber, Morgan, in a telephone conversation
Friday, accused the steering committee of ignoring opposition. “This is being rammed down our throats. We have had numerous steering committee and board meetings where the opposition has been raised,” Morgan said. “It’s like nothing has been listened to and the agenda just keeps getting pushed forward.” Morgan is also incensed with how SLIPP proponents wish to proceed and maintains waterquality monitoring should be a regional district responsibility. “They want to spend $290,000
This week Veteran Harry Welton explores the history of Salmon Arm’s cenotaph. See A8 for details. Soggy conditions didn’t stop Glynis Sim, who ran to a provincial gold medal. See A17.
of gas tax money in 2014 from April 1 to Dec. 31 – $75,000 of it on water quality testing and the rest for meetings, public education and so forth, leading to a decision for a five-year program,” he says. “Included in that is water quality remediation measures, talking about assuming control for water drainage issues along highway rights-of-way, which is the responsibility of MOTI (Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure). That’s just an example of the agenda creep that’s in their docu-
ment for the plans for 2015 on.” Morgan stepped down as steering committee chair in May because he didn’t want “to continue to be drawn into an increasingly divisive debate over the direction of SLIPP.” At that time, he agreed he was prepared to work with the steering committee but wanted the terms of reference to be more narrow and more affordable. Simpson, meanwhile, says there has been, and continues to See Water on page A2
Index Opinion ....................... A6 View Point .................. A7 Life & Times ............... A8 Sports................A17-A20 Arts & Events ... A21-A24 Time Out................... A25 Vol. 106, No. 45, 44 pages