AGM
Finances
We have
committed $3000 to TWU for Salmon in the Valley. There is also an expense
of about $300 for books (we give each teacher an environmental book). We
traditionally spend about $1000 for the website and office expenses. So
the $5000 we receive each year from TOL is mostly committed for this year after
taking into account the $350 already committed to the lamia site. We have
money in the bank from previous years but it is tied up in a term deposit and
not accessible until the fall. We have overspent the TOL $5000 by a small
amount in recent years.
Aldergrove
Credit Union has generously donated $500 again this year to fund 2
classes of students for the Salmon in the Valley Program.
Directors
for 2010
David
Clements, Gerry Reist, Doug McFee, Win Bromley, Mike O’Brien. Thanks to all
for agreeing to serve.
Regular
Meeting
1)
ALR Forum
Forum tentatively booked for Wednesday April 28 pending availability of speakers
and venue. Speakers
Harold Steeves Provincial Perspective
Eric Bysouth Master Plan for the Valley and a
Livable Region Strategy that preserves the farm lands
Dave Davis Local farmer
Doug McFee ALR exclusion applications in
2)
We reviewed the Langley ALR issues. Eric Bysouth talked about the lack of
overall planning for the area including the lack of a master transportation plan
making use of passenger rail. He suggested that the ALR issues and other
long range planning issues must be addressed rather than continuing to change
things in a piece meal way as seems to happen often in
a)
Wall property and Tuscan
This is a large property at the northeast corner of Glover and Highway 10.
They have received a conditional approval to develop a smaller part of the
property which has been deemed to be not suitable for agriculture. The
number of units they want to put on the property (about 90) would require
townhome type densities and would not comply with TOL zoning and servicing
regulations. This is not an exclusion from the ALR but a “development
within the ALR”. It has been approved contingent on Wall providing money
to help improve farming in the
b)
TWU Has not gone through council yet. Several
problems with the proposal the chief one being that there is no overall plan to
the area.
c)
Omelainec is an unusual situation in that the property was a gravel pit that was
filled in and there is apparently a salinity issue. So there is some
chance that it may get exclusion from the ALR but the other ALR properties in
the Salmon River Uplands do not have soil issues and the ALC does not recognize
the one acre zoning.
3)
Water Doug McFee and Dave Mellis met with Rich
Coleman March 12. Phase 2 of the Groundwater Act has been delayed again
apparently because the province does not want to hire the enforcement personnel.
Parts of the act such as capping artesian wells are badly needed now and would
not require a big personnel commitment. The Living Water Strategy and
request for public input on water issues recently seem to be at least partly a
smoke screen to hide the fact that the Water Act is again stalled.
Linda Nowlan using WCEL funding has written an opinion for us on what can be
done to protect water and reduce overuse by existing users (chiefly
agriculture). This report should be reviewed at our next meeting.
4)
Fill sites
We
reviewed the problems with fill sites including clay causing runoff issues and
preventing infiltration of water into the ground to recharge the aquifer.
The
5)
Endangered Rivers
6)
Kari
McFee successfully applied for funding to replant the hill in Tall Timbers where
we have been removing lamia. We have $1200 in matching funding (TOL will
give us one dollar for every dollar we raise or commit) to plant the area and
improve the pathway down to the river. We have already committed $350 for
this project but may need to commit more unless we can fund raise.
7)
Unfortunately
Chris Hall wasn’t able to make it to the meeting to present on this project.
We need to discuss this at the next meeting. We have given $1000 per year
the last 2 years (with the first year offset by money donated from PSF via Matt
Foy and the second $1000 coming out of surplus funds. It does not appear
that bass in the lake can be eradicated but TWU is studying them to see how much
they affect salmon in the system.
8)
East
We
discussed the April 26 council meeting where TOL engineers will present more
information about the pipes issue. We also reviewed briefly the brochure
sent to us by TOL about the Hoping aquifer situation, zoning in the area and the
plan to bring forward the WMP and a Distributed Sewerage system (likely new
septic tanks) policy. It appears that the agenda may be to bring forward
the WMP and the Sewerage policy then try to remove the moratorium on development
even though the WMP will not be enough to deal with the water issues (dropping
water table and high nitrate levels in the well water). Langley Field
Naturalists have suggested that there needs to be an open public process to
further discuss the piping options before a proper decision can be made.
There was some sympathy for a pipe going to Aldergrove along
Topics
for the next meeting
1)
Review of
2)
Review of Linda Nowlan’s report
3)
Review of ALR forum and related issues
4)
5)
6)
Floodplain