bowenislandundercurrent.com
COVID19 DATA: Bowen Island / Lions Bay numbers tick up
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THURSDAY, JUNE 10 , 2021
JUDE AND JANE
VOL. 47 NO. 23
BIUndercurrent
BowUndercurrent www.bowenislandundercurrent.com
A poet and an artist team up in the Hearth’s latest show PAGE 8
Cove Bay delay WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT? BRONWYN BEAIRSTO Editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com
NICOLA MURRAY PHOTO
DOUBLE RAINBOW: Bowen social media feeds filled with a stunning double rainbow in Mannion (Deep) Bay
last weekend. Nicola Murray caught the entire stunning arc from Pebbly Beach.
Gambier logging rouses resistance
KEILI BARTLETT Coast Reporter
While much media and local attention is focussed on a logging blockade at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, advocates in Atl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound) are turning their attention to a cutblock closer to home. On June 3, Gambier Island Conservancy launched an online petition against logging a six-hectare cutblock known as Woodlot 0039 near the Whispering Creek watershed on
Gambier Island. The petition calls for logging by private woodlot operator Gambier Forest Resources Ltd. to halt immediately before it causes “irreparable damage” to the watershed. On June 9, the petition had garnered more than 1,400 signatures. A video by Bob Turner, filmed in late April and uploaded to YouTube on June 6, shows Tim Turner walking through the area designated to be cut. Turner, who is a director of the Gambier Island Conservancy and on the board of My Sea to Sky, leans over a recently cut
tree stump, and says it looks like the Douglas fir was “well over 200 years” old. “A logging plan on paper and a logging plan in hand, on the ground, are two very different things,” Tim Turner told the Coast Reporter. He said that up until now the woodlot was confined to the Mannion Creek watershed, but the company ran a road over the drainage divide and into a new watershed. That is what triggered the public outcry, Turner said. CONTINUED ON P. 9
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It’s still same old water coming through Cove Bay Water System taps these days. While Bowen’s largest water system had been set to have its multi-million dollar water treatment plant come online in mid-May, the plant’s activation was postponed until further notice. Everything was going smoothly during commissioning, said Patrick Graham, Bowen Island Municipality’s director of engineering, in an email. The activation was set and announced for May 17 (and then postponed until later that week) but they ran into problems with the filter cleaning cycle and found a defective piece of equipment. “It’s a heater that heats up the water at the start of the filter cleaning cycle,” explained Graham in the email, adding that they’re working with the supplier to have the component fixed or replaced. “We also have to make sure that the issues with the heater haven’t or won’t affect other components of the treatment process,” said Graham. “Then we’ll complete commissioning and the water quality testing required by [Vancouver Coastal Health] before sending water to distribution.” None of the water from the new treatment plant has been sent to island taps, so Graham attributes any perceptions of improved quality to the placebo effect. While the objective is to get the plant online as quickly as possible, Graham is hesitant to put a date to it. “The delay is unfortunate, but the purpose of commissioning is to make sure that everything is functioning properly – and to resolve if it isn’t – before putting the facility into service,” he said.