LangleyAdvance
Coyote concerns
Arriving in
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Your source for local sports, news, weather, and entertainment: www.langleyadvance.com
pg A5
Audited circulation: 41,100 – 32 pages
Environment
Gun club ordered to clean up by Roxanne Hooper
Highest Price Paid for Gold!
rhooper@langleyadvance.com
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Langley City
Community Day Thousands of people turn out to enjoy Langley City’s annual family party.
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by Heather Colpitts hcolpitts@langleyadvance.com
Organizers couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day for the annual Community Day Parade and Celebration on Saturday, June 19. “It was a fabulous day,” noted parade marshal Lilianne Fuller. She noted that it took the efforts of many to pull off this free family activity again this year, including parade entrants, business sponsors, community volunteers, performers, RCMP and auxiliaries, community groups, and the general public. What they all got to enjoy was a sunny day with warm but not hot temperatures as action started on Fraser Highway for the parade before moving to Douglas Park for an afternoon of fun.
Langley Events Centre
Cherri Chalifour
New arena bosses release staff
Sandra Ennis
“Rec Ex” has assumed operations of the Langley Events Centre.
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REALTY www.cherriandsandra.com
There are changes afoot at the Langley Events Centre. The LEC has contracted with Recreation Excellence – or “Rec Ex” – to operate its arena component. Subsequently, arena maintenance staff employed by the current operating company were
released on Monday. Rec Ex will provide the maintenance services for the LEC, so those jobs were deemed redundant. Employees who were terminated can contact Rec Ex and be re-employed if they applied and were selected. Rec Ex also operates the George Preston Recreation Centre in Brookswood and the Aldergrove Arena, among other facilities. The LEC officially opened on June 13, 2009. It is home to the Willoughby Community Centre and eight sports teams, including the British
Columbia Hockey League’s Langley Chiefs, Trinity Western University Spartans Athletics, Western Lacrosse Association’s Langley Thunder, and the International Basketball League’s B.C. Titans. The more than 250,000square-foot facility houses a 5,000-seat arena, a triple gymnasium, a certified gymnastics training area, and a 500-seat banquet hall. The centre hosts such events as hockey, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, trade shows, concerts and many other types of events.
Langley Rod and Gun Club is under fire from the Ministry of Environment. A letter issued by the ministry last month calls into question the potential contamination of ground water at the large Brookswood facility, and has ordered the club to take immediate action. In a strongly worded letter senior officer Coleen Hackinen said the ministry has been investigating the issue since last summer. “Site contamination at outdoor shooting ranges is common, particularly at those that have been in operation for a long time, and if left unmanaged can result in impacts on human health and the environment,” Hackinen’s letter said. The gun range, in the 3500 block of 208th Street, is located over a “highly vulnerable” water aquifer used for municipal drinking water. “It is extremely important that this site be properly monitored and managed,” Hackinen wrote. And documentation provided by the 65-year-old club thus far, she said, has not been sufficient to prove that “potential future risks to human health or the environment have been adequately evaluated.” Last fall, the club provided a water analysis from Columbia Water Wells. “Intermittent sampling at one groundwater well is not satisfactory evidence that the aquifer has not been impacted nor will be in future,” Hackinen stated. She also criticized the club for its remediation efforts. “We understand that the LRGC periodically recovers lead shot on an ad hoc basis – without record keeping; however, we are not satisfied that this sole activity represents an adequately comprehensive environmental management plan.” She went on to implore the club to hire a “qualified professional experienced in contaminated site investigation and remediation” to identify existing levels of contamination and to implement an environmental management plan. Hackinen pointed out that all directors should be aware of the longer-term liability issues surrounding inaction, and costs for remediation. A copy of the May 12 letter from the ministry offices was sent to club president Dave Zappone and copied to 17 other club directors, as well as the Township.