The Chilliwack
Progress Wednesday
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Online effort to improve local voter participation Katie Bartel The Progress A group on social media are spearheading a push for increased voter turnout come the next municipal election. A Twitter conversation earlier this week resulted in an online poll asking the Chilliwack community why it didn’t w vvote in last onth’s We need W d m school trustto focus on ee byelection. improving Chilliwack esident our voter rand freturnout quent tweeter, Jamie ~ Jason Lum Billingham, developed the poll. She hopes to gain h underaan sstanding for the low voter turnout, and encourage change for next year’s municipal election. Of the roughly 64,000 eligible voters in Chilliwack, 1,453 cast a ballot in last month’s school trustee byelection; 2.3 per cent of the voting population. In the 2011 municipal election, 10,000 ballots were cast – the second worst voter turnout in the province. “When so few people exercise their rights and responsibilities to vote, or otherwise engage, the people who end up making decisions are less likely to reflect the ethics or will of the community,” said Billingham, who has a masters degree in community engagement. “A community is only as healthy as it is engaged in caring for itself.” Billingham ran a similar, smallscale poll following the 2011 election.
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Local First Nations, recreational fishers, and environmental groups gathered at a site near the Fraser River Tuesday, to express concerns about the Aevitas waste recycling plant location proposed for a site on Cannor Road. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Rezoning sparks call for government action Jennifer Feinberg The Progress The riverside site of a proposed waste recycling plant in Chilliwack is still rocking the boat. First Nations, environmental and sport fishing reps held a press conference on the shores of the Fraser River Tuesday to express united opposition to the Aevitas Inc. proposal for a plant just downstream to handle hazardous materials like mercury and PCBs. They’re calling for relocation of the facility and comprehensive public reviews by senior levels of government, like Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Health.
Sto:lo Tribal Council president Clarence Pennier said the riverside location of the facility is “unacceptable” because of the risk it poses. “The recycling plant will be in the heart of Sto:lo territory and it will be too close to the Fraser River. It’s unacceptable because it poses a danger to the river and the salmon.” City council gave the rezoning second and third reading already, and is not legally allowed to accept any new information on the issue. It was a unanimous decision by council on Dec. 3 to rezone a parcel on the Cattermole Lands from its M4 heavy industrial designation, to M6 special industrial
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zone to allow the construction of a waste recycling plant. Mayor Sharon Gaetz stated that Chilliwack specifically opted for the M6 ‘special industrial’ designation to give council the ability to impose extra environmental restrictions and conditions that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to include. At the hearing, councillors said they were convinced the work could be done safely by Aevitas Inc. and reports indicated Aevitas has never had a safety incident or complaint in its 20 years of operation at locations in Ontario and Alberta. But the main concern of those gathered by the Fraser was still
the proximity of the proposed facility to the river, and the limits of the public hearing and consultation process. “I was baffled that they would even consider rezoning for a proposal of that type on a flood plain,” Rod Clapton of B.C. Federation of Drift Fishers told The Progress. Why does he think the Aevitas plant poses a risk necessarily? “This is an issue that impacts communities all along the Fraser River, which is one of the most productive salmon rivers in the world. Some of the language about the facility refers to that location (on Cannor Road) as posing a moderate flood threat.
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