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www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015
VOL. 27, NO. 1
Eric Ricker, co-president of the Friends of the Morden Mine Society, looks up at a structure from where a massive steam boiler once powered Morden Mine’s operations. The society has given up on attempts to get financing to restore and preserve the structure. CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Society ends fight to save Morden
I
LACK OF support hurts group’s efforts to preserve structure. BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
A citizens’ group will surrender the fight to save Vancouver Island’s only remaining coal tipple after more than a decade of calling government to action. Friends of Morden Mine is preparing to throw in the towel this fall after 12 years of working to honour one of only two remaining concrete coal tipples and head frames left in North America. Society co-president Eric Ricker calls the decision a shame, but
he also says the group has done all it can do. The Friends of Morden Mine came together in 2003, and while there have been some changes at the park, its crown jewel – a seven-storey-high concrete tipple and head frame – has been left to deteriorate behind a chainlink fence. More than a century ago it was used to lift and lower machinery and elevators into a 55-metredeep mine shaft. The group’s vision has been to see it restored with a new interpretive centre on site to help tell the story of Vancouver Island’s coal mining past. But the dream has run into challenges, including financing to get the work done. The role of the provincial park is to protect and preserve the
remnants of coal mining history, but B.C. Parks isn’t able to pay for emergency repairs or restoration which it claims, at $2.7 million, would equate to 20 per cent of its entire capital program. Other doors to dollars have closed because private funders aren’t interested in giving money to something under the province’s purview. The last straw for the society was when the Regional District of Nanaimo declined support for a federal grant application this year. It’s at a dead end, says Ricker, who sees the tragedy in the end to the advocacy group. Without its work to publicize the mine and the need to get the structure fixed, he believes the tipple and head frame will sit there and rot. See ‘REPAIR’ /4
Group forms to block sale of Wildwood forest BY KARL YU THE NEWS BULLETIN
With Wildwood Ecoforest’s fate up in the air, a grassroots group is concerned the non-profit society holding the site in trust will amend its bylaws to help facilitate a sale. The 31-hectare site, located in Cedar, was sold by the late Merv Wilkinson, a sustainable forester, to The Land Conservancy in 2000, with the understanding it would remain in the public domain. But with a multimillion-dollar debt load, the land trust is looking to sell to a private party. Because Wildwood has been declared inalienable, it can’t be sold or transferred, according to conservancy bylaws. Jessica Wolf, member of both the conservancy and the recently formed Protectors of Wildwood, said notification was sent out last week of a June 12 extraordinary general meeting in Victoria, where she says it will be decided if properties previously deemed inalienable can be transferred and sold. “I think they have to make these changes in order to even transfer those proper ties to another land trust because it says that they can’t unless [The Land Conservancy] dissolves,” said Wolf. “I completely support a change in order for them to transfer prop-
erties to another land trust. The Protectors of Wildwood do not support selling it.” Wolf said her group will be reaching out to conservancy members and ecoforestry experts and is circulating a petition expressing opposition to the sale. “We’re definitely gearing up for a fight here because it’s not going to happen,” said Wolf. John Shields, The Land Conser vancy director of operations, said he couldn’t comment on Wildwood as there were ongoing negotiations, but he did confirm there would be a June 12 meeting. Shields said the meeting was not specifically for Wildwood, but for language related to ecological properties being transferred to the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Nature Trust of B.C. “As a result of the financial difficulty, we are transferring 26 eco-gift properties to the NCC for protection, but in order to do that, we have to amend the bylaws to put into the bylaws, the provision of [a] court order,” Shields said. reporter@nanaimobulletin.com
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