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Friday, November 21, 2014 · mapleridgenews.com · e s t. 1 9 7 8 · (o f f i ce ) 6 0 4 - 4 6 7 - 1 1 2 2 · (d e l i ve r y ) 6 0 4 - 4 6 6 - 6 3 9 7
Put farmers before fish: Park Property owner opposes slough restoration project By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
in case the addict wants further treatment. “We know that people are using drugs. We want to keep them safe and healthy. We want to keep as many needles off the street as we can,” Polegato said. Mayor-elect Nicole Read heard about needles during her campaign for the Nov. 15 civic election. People sent her pictures of needles found at Haney Nokai Park, on 222nd Street and from near Harry Hooge elementary, as well as the lacrosse box at Thomas Haney secondary. “This needles in parks thing is outrageous. Any place where children play, it needs to be free from drug paraphernalia. That’s a bare minimum.”
The Pitt Meadows landowner whose property is crucial to development of the North Lougheed Corridor has come out as critical of local politicians, and their support of the Katzie Slough restoration project. Pitt Meadows farmers stand to lose a critical source of irrigation and drainage to a Katzie Slough restoration project, says Bill Park, adding that municipal politicians who spoke so favourably about the slough restoration project during their campaign need to pump the brakes, and put farmers first. Mayor John Becker and all the members of his election team toured the slough with representatives of Watershed Watch during the campaign, and all voiced their support for the restoration plan. Park owns land that is critical to the proposed SmartCentres commercial development in the North Lougheed Corridor. He owns about 90 acres, and the developer is interested in purchasing about half of it. His interest in this issue has nothing to do with that transaction, he asserts. “I’m not doing this for any personal gain,” he said. “The slough doesn’t touch the land anywhere near where SmartCentres would be buying it.” The city envisions a mixed-employment and highway commercial development for a 50-hectare site near the corner of Lougheed and Harris Road – zoning that includes everything from a business hotel, as well as more shopping with big-box anchor stores.
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See Slough, 3
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Garry Joe, an adult counsellor with Alouette Addictions Services, will be training clients how to use overdose prevention kits, which include two retractable syringes, two vials of naloxone, a rescue breathing barrier and non-latex gloves.
Getting to the needle point Number of syringes issued has more than doubled B y P h i l M e l nyc h u k pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
T
he number of clean needles handed out to drug users by Alouette Addictions has more than doubled this year, from 18,000 to 50,000. That doesn’t mean, though, that the number of drug users has jumped by that amount. Part of the increase is because the service is handled solely now by the Alouette, whereas Fraser Health and outreach workers took part before. “What we’re seeing is that people are becoming
more aware of the service. People are becoming more aware of their health,” and are exchanging the needles to keep themselves and the streets cleaner, said Annika Polegato, executive-director of Alouette Addictions Services. Drug users exchange their dirty needles for clean ones so that when they inject drugs such as heroin, they minimize the spread of disease to themselves or others. Read The needle exchange has been running for three years, but Alouette Addictions doesn’t track how many needles each user is taking. The needles are exchanged with an addictions counsellor present, so a brief connection is made
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