EAGLE VALLEY
NEWS
Council contests worst road in B.C. nomination Page 2
Local writer captures life in Eagle Valley Page 6
Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013 PM40008236
Vol. 58 No. 48 Sicamous, B.C., • 1.25 (GST included) • www.eaglevalleynews.com
Winter beauty: Sicamous Creek falls flow through growing ice formations on a frosty Friday morning. Damaged in the 2012 flooding, the falls trail system has since been restored by the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, including the stairway to the falls. Native trees have also been replanted. Photo by Lachlan Labere
District to complete civic centre with green certification By Lachlan Labere Eagle Valley News
The District of Sicamous is going for gold. Municipal council has approved spending $4,500 to verify the municipality’s $4 million civic centre, officially opened in July 2011, meets a gold standard in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a rating system for sustainable design, construction and operation of a building. Monica Baillie of Landmark Architecture explained to council what went into the building, which includes the municipal town hall, as well as the community’s library and museum, to meet and exceed basic LEED certification and push the structure into gold territory. A point system is utilized, which takes into account a wide range of factors that include everything from the building’s central location, to the geo-exchange system used to heat and cool the facility, to all the locally sourced and/or re-
cycled material used in its construction. The fact that the building can be expanded to include a third floor within the same footprint is another asset recognized under LEED. Final LEED classification will come from the Canada Green Building Council. Baillie said the question arose whether or not the civic centre could qualify for LEED’s highest rating of platinum. She said it’s something that could be looked at, that there may be some way to earn the additional points needed in the LEED rating system. But, she continued, the effort may not be worth the additional cost, as the building already exceeds what was originally envisioned. “I can tell you, when we started the process, we were going for the lowest level possible, we were just planning to go for LEED certified, which is to say, we were going to use resources wisely, use local materials,” said Baillie. See Richardson on page 2
Sustainable building: Recycled steel and local timber was used in the construction of Sicamous’ civic centre. Photo by Lachlan Labere