Arrow Lakes News, March 05, 2014

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Vol. 91 Issue 10 • Wednesday, March 5, 2014 • www.arrowlakesnews.com • 250-265-3823 • $1.25 •

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Broadway on ice

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Ferry ready to hit the water as launch day nears Alex Cooper Arrow Lakes News

John Harding, the owner/manager of WaterBridge Steel looks out over the new ferry from the boat’s top deck. Alex Cooper/Arrow Lakes News

At some point this month, there will be a new site on the Arrow Lakes. No, I’m not talking about boats being launched from the Nakusp boat ramp. I’m talking about the new Galena-Shelter Bay ferry, which is scheduled to go for its first test drive at some point in the coming weeks. It was amazing to think that was the case when I took a tour of the ferry last Sunday, Feb 23. The deck was crowded with storage bins, which hold loads of piping waiting to be laid. The bathrooms still needed to be installed and there were no walls in the staff areas. At the control deck, the windows still needed to be cut out of the metal framing and the glass installed. The control panels weren’t in place either, nor was the ship’s mast, which sat freshly painted in a large building on site. Down below the deck, big 700metre spools of wire were stacked together waiting to be installed — adding to the countless of kilometres that had already been laid. Sparks flew as welders worked

away. The watertight doors that prevent flooding from one room to the next still needed to be installed. Everything still needed to be painted white. A pirate flag stood aloft where the mast will be — waiting to be replaced by the B.C. flag when it goes in service. From my untrained eyes, it looked like there was still lots left to do, but for John Harding, the owner of WaterBridge Steel, the company contracted to build the new ship, these are all details and it will all come together pretty quickly now. Quick enough that pretty soon the 80-vehicle ferry will be plying the waters around Nakusp on a regular basis as they get everything ready for its maiden voyage on Friday, May 16 — just in time for the first long weekend of summer. Work on the ferry has been proceeding seven days a week since the summer, except for a 10-day break for Christmas. I visited the ferry on a Sunday afternoon, when only about 25 employees were on site; on a busy weekday there are 50 workers — a

See Ferry, page 6

Woman sent to prison for car crash that killed Burton resident Alex Cooper Arrow Lakes News

After more than two years through the court system, some closure finally came to the friends and family of Rita Sundstrom. Lisa Torp Jepsen was sentenced to 15 months in prison and handed three years probation and a seven year driving prohibition for causing the crash that killed Sundstrom just south of Nakusp on Nov. 10, 2011. Jepsen pleaded guilty to the charge of dangerous driving causing death after provincial crown

counsel reduced the more severe charge of impaired driving causing death. Crown counsil Phil Seagram read out the circumstances of the crash. It was shortly before 3 p.m. and Sundstrom was on her way to her home in Burton from her work at Chumley’s restaurant when she was smashed into by Jepsen and killed on impact. Jepsen was rushing to see her 11-year-old son in Nakusp. She crossed a double-solid line on a blind hill in order to pass another vehicle and crashed her red Honda

Civic into Sundstrom’s blue Honda Civic, Seagram told the court. Seagram spoke of the driver Jepsen was passing, who described her as a “crazy person” roaring past. When he realized a collision was about to happen, he pulled over to make space, but it was too late. He heard a tremendous bang and stopped his car. He tried to help, but there was nothing he could do. Paramedics who arrived on scene, and later hospital staff, detected signs of alcohol on Jepsen, but there was lack of proof that she was impaired at the time of

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the crash. She did admit to having drank the night before. Seagram emphasized the presence of alcohol during sentencing, saying it was a factor, even if she wasn’t impaired. He said her passing maneuver was “intentional and deliberate risk taking.” “It was unsafe to pass and risk was taken deliberately,” he said. A somber and teary-eyed gathering of close to 20 of Sundstrom’s friends and family members sat in the back of the court while Seagram recounted what happened. He described Sundstrom as

someone well known in Nakusp, with many friends and family in the community. Her death devastated her partner. “The loss has been great,” said Seagram. Jepsen’s lawyer Michael Newcombe described her as someone who’d had trouble with relationships and alcohol and had been dealing with the trauma of the event. The reason she didn’t plead guilty right away was because of the penalty that comes with an impaired driving charge.

See Crash, page 2

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