Street sweeping will take place in Ganges on Thursday night, prompting a request for people to not leave their cars parked on the side of the road.
According to Emcon operations manager Andrew Gaetz, the company’s vacuum sweeper operator will be coming to Salt Spring from Vancouver Island on the evening of Feb. 22 and is expected to start working in Ganges at around 9 p.m. until the early daylight hours.
“Our concern is for any vehicles parked in downtown Ganges that may impede our sweeper.”
Local officials aren’t deterred by potential obstacles to housing more government offices within the Salt Spring Island Multi Space (SIMS) building, voting unanimously to investigate further — and hoping to save taxpayer money in the process.
Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) asked staff to report on the feasibility of relocating all the island’s Capital Regional District (CRD) offices into the former middle school building, currently housing just CRD parks and recreation support staff. CRD electoral area director Gary Holman promoted expanding on current efforts that explored meeting the needs of the Islands Trust at SIMS, saying that combining resources will cost less to taxpayers.
“The bottom line is the building is 25,000 square feet,” said Holman during the LCC’s meeting Thursday, Feb. 15. “This building represents our best and perhaps only opportunity to co-locate government offices on Salt Spring.”
New construction isn’t economically feasible, Holman said, and likely a similar situation exists for the Islands Trust, who are losing their current office space lease this summer. But, he argued, potential savings were too significant to ignore.
“Three local government offices are now paying commercial rent, to the tune of $140,000 a year,” said Holman. “Instead of paying rent to private [individuals], we’d be paying it ‘back’ to the CRD, reducing the requisition — which is now $260,000.”
Holman said there would be implications for the non-profit groups who rent space, but that there was no intention to eliminate SIMS as a community centre. LCC member Brian Webster agreed, noting back in December he had voted against gauging interest from Islands Trust staff in relocating to SIMS.
“But I support this motion, if it doesn’t impinge on the current, valuable other uses of the building,” said Webster.
“And,” he added, “the prospect of the Trust potentially moving its Salt Spring offices to Vancouver Island horrifies me.”
A community effort to provide housing for teachers on Mayne Island is coming to fruition this week — and may be inspiring officials within the Gulf Islands School District (SD64) to get into the “teacherage” business on Salt Spring.
Jackie Peterson, chair of Mayne Island School’s Parent Advisory Council (PAC), said educator Marcus Down — who became the vice-principal of Mayne Island School at the beginning of the calendar year — is moving in with family members this week as the first tenants of the Mayne Island Teacherage, marking the culmination of a months-long project that might have involved most of the island’s 1,300 residents.
“The result is going to be a fully staffed school and all of our teachers living on Mayne Island for, I think, the first time ever,” said Peterson.
About 30 students attend the K-7 Mayne Island School, which has faced difficulty in recent years finding — and keeping — staff. Peterson described losing educators throughout the academic year, as many faced commuting from Salt Spring Island and 12- and 14-hour days getting back and forth.
“It’s not a super appealing job from that perspective,” said Peterson, “and that’s where the majority of our teacher pool came from.”
The search for stable accommodation led the PAC to look at renovating an existing structure on school property. The two-bedroom, farmhouse-style home sits on SD64 land; in the 1970s, the building had been part of the provincial teacherage program for rural communities, but fell into disrepair. For the past 40 years or so, Peterson said, it had been used alternately as a workshop and storage area — nicknamed “the Ark” by students and staff, because it reportedly held two of everything.
“It was an old house that had been moved here from somewhere else. But the bones were there,” said Peterson. “The PAC took it upon ourselves, and came to an agreement with the school district to allow us to renovate this building into livable condition.”
Since August, it seems like most of Mayne Island has been working on the teacherage. A local heat pump contractor was among the first to offer support — a new heating system, complete with a water heater, now warms the building. A local electrician donated electrical work — his wife, Peterson said, was a career educator.
A donated gas stove was traded with the island’s firefighters for their electric one; someone else donated a nearly new fridge. There were donated tiles for the kitchen backsplash; another islander in mid-renovation of their own place brought the light fixtures, which Peterson said had a “nice schoolhouse vibe” that coordinated with the old blackboard they kept as a design element.
A friend donated an aluminum and glass railing that had been sitting in her yard for 10 years; that cleaned up beautifully, and now surrounds a surprisingly big deck. Someone else donated a kitchen countertop — that didn’t fit the kitchen, but became a countertop in the bathroom and laundry.
Dozens of volunteers flowed in and out of the building. Brian and Colleen Dearden at Mayne’s Home Hardware were “amazing” partners for the PAC, according to Peterson; indeed, the list of companies, organizations and individuals who put in time, donated supplies and sent money is long. Names seem to be continually added at maynepacfundraising.square.site/thank-you.
Today, with donations approaching $80,000 — through a huge variety of fundraisers and a grant-in-aid from the Capital Regional District — the house is being rented at below market rate, with proceeds headed into a fund to keep up the teacherage going forward. School board trustee Deborah Luporini told the SD64 Board of Education last Wednesday that Mayne Islanders deserved praise for solving a seemingly insurmountable problem, creating a dedicated residence on-island specifically for educators.
“The community’s really pulled together to support this,” said Luporini. “It’s been a fabulous project.”
Fellow trustee Rob Pingle agreed, pointing to a recent announcement about “BC Builds” — a provincial initiative to leverage government, community and non-profit-owned properties with millions of dollars in low-cost financing to create middle-income housing. It all suggested to him there might be a path toward doing something similar on another piece of underutilized district-owned land: the recently-shuttered Phoenix School site on Drake Road.
“As we consider future uses of the Phoenix property, this may be a timely opportunity,” said Pingle, “since we have gone down the path of teacherages, to provide a teacherage on Salt Spring Island.”
Peterson said on Mayne, the PAC and the broader community wanted to show how people can come together to solve “seemingly massive” problems with simple solutions — if they work together.
“We said, ‘let’s solve this for ourselves,’” said Peterson. “Let’s do what we can as a small community to make this change that hopefully will benefit the Mayne Island School and the kids there for years to come.”
To donate funds and learn how to make material or labour in-kind contributions, visit maynepacfundraising.square.site.
When it comes to doing their part for ecological causes, Salt Spring Islanders will often go above and beyond.
Take their enthusiasm for Scotch broom removal. While broom has long been understood to be both a fire hazard and a bully when it comes to taking terrain from the island’s native plants, it wasn’t until the Native Plant Stewardship Group (NPSG) spearheaded annual spring drop-off events that people had a deadline to work towards and a place to bring unwanted broom plants growing on their property.
For many years the NPSG — originally a Salt Spring Island Conservancy entity and now part of Transition Salt Spring — has encouraged islanders to “bust broom” by putting out “Cut Broom in Bloom” signs each spring and educating people about how to deal with broom and other invasive species found on the island. Since 2010, drop-off days for invasive species have been organized by the NPSG, with people bringing the results of their noxious plant culling efforts to specific sites, where the plants were taken to off-island disposal depots, given to hungry goats or, more recently, chipped on site.
Popularity of the drop-off events gradually grew, to the point that an estimated 10 tons were collected from 172 vehicles in three events last year. While the days seemed to unfold smoothly to the casual observer, the potential for things to not go as planned was always a possibility, and the sheer physical nature of the task — even with much appreciated help from local firefighters and chipping company personnel — has become too much for the NPSG volunteers.
It would be a shame to lose the momentum and impact provided by drop-off events, so hopefully another organization will step up to fill the void.
In announcing the stepping back of her group, NPSG spokesperson Jane Petch outlines the situation in an article in this week’s issue of the Driftwood. With the same level of conscientiousness that has motivated her to volunteer for so many years, she offers options for how people can deal with the broom they cut this year.
With any luck, that kind of care and enthusiasm will take root among a new generation of environmentally conscious, broom-busting volunteers.
BY KIRSTEN BOLTON
For ArtSpring
The foursome of 20-somethings in the Isidore String Quartet bring their enthusiasm for “approaching the established as if it were brand new, and the new as if it were firmly established” to ArtSpring audiences Thursday, Feb. 29 beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the prestigious 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, the New York City-based ensemble was formed in 2019 with the intent “to revisit, rediscover and reinvigorate the repertory.”
Violinists Phoenix Avalon and Adrian Steele, violist Devin Moore,and cellist Joshua McClendon formed the Isidore Quartet in 2019 as part of the chamber music program at the Juilliard School. Overcoming the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, they came back together for the 2021 Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival under the wing of Joel Krosnick, who serves as their development coach along with Juilliard faculty Joseph Lin, Astrid Schween, Laurie Smukler and Roger Tapping.
They are known to play from digital tablets, not paper sheet music. They dress in casual black and wear socks and shoes of their preferred fashion statement. They evoke profound emotions surrounding our seemingly mundane lived experiences, and it works.
“Amazing . . . The ensemble was tight and all the playing stunning – full of clarity and nuance,” said the Boston Musical Intelligencer in 2023. “Don’t pass up any chances to hear the Isidore Quartet.”
Their Banff triumph brought extensive tours of North America and Europe, a two-year appointment as the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University, plus a two-week residency at Banff Centre including a professionally produced recording, along with extensive ongoing coaching, career guidance and mentorship.
Outside the concert hall, the quartet has worked with PROJECT: MUSIC HEALS US, providing encouragement, education, and healing to marginalized communities — including elderly, disabled, rehabilitating incarcerated and homeless populations — who otherwise have limited access to high-quality live music performance.
On the 29th, Isidore String Quartet will delight audiences with a challenging program that includes W.A. Mozart’s String Quartet in C, K. 465 (‘Dissonance’) (1785); H. Dutilleux’s String Quartet: Ainsi la nuit (1971-1976); and F. Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 44 No. 3 (1838).
The name Isidore recognizes the ensemble’s musical connection to the Juilliard Quartet: one of that group’s early members was legendary violinist Isidore Cohen. Additionally, it acknowledges a shared affection for a certain libation; legend has it a Greek monk named Isidore concocted the first genuine vodka recipe for the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
It stuck!
Tickets are available through ArtSpring.
By GARY HOLMAN
SSI ELECTORAL AREA DIRECTOR
The final CRD budget for 2024, a difficult year, particularly at the local level due to several factors, will be approved by the CRD Board later in March.
The total CRD requisition for Salt Spring Island (SSI) for 2024, including Capital Regional Hospital District, other CRD regional and sub-regional services, as well as the delegated services of the Local Community Commission (LCC), is about $8.2 million, an increase of seven per cent over 2023. As reported earlier by LCC chair Earl Rook and myself, LCC services account for about 5.3 per cent of this increase, and regional and sub-regional services about 1.7 per cent.
A significant cost driver regionally and locally is inflation, and related, negotiated staff wages and salaries. Assessed values on SSI in 2024 (about $1.05 million for the “average” residential property versus $1.1 million in 2023), declined by about four per cent versus slight increases for the Southern Gulf Islands and Juan de Fuca electoral areas and CRD as a whole. This means that Salt Spring’s share of the regional and sub-regional service costs decreased, partially mitigating their tax impacts on SSI.
Affordable Housing
The “counter-petition” regarding the proposed CRD borrowing for affordable housing has failed, meaning that $85 million can proceed as projects emerge. As with the previous borrowing for CRD’s Regional Housing First program (which helped fund more than 1,500 affordable housing units in the region, including the 54-unit Croftonbrook project on SSI), CRD will seek matching funding from senior governments for land acquisition and project construction.
At its Feb. 14 meeting, the CRD Board also approved a Rural Housing Strategy (RHS) which, after stakeholder consultation, will be implemented in the SSI and Southern Gulf Islands (SGI) electoral areas in early 2025. This strategy proposes the hiring of a rural housing coordinator, as well as possible incentives for affordable suites and cottages, and pre-development funding for the due diligence required to develop affordable housing.
As reported earlier, the Southern Gulf Islands Tourism Partnership (SGITP) has agreed to an annual contribution of $100,000 per year to the CRD RHS with revenues from the two per cent Municipal and Regional District Tax levied on tourism accommodation in the SSI and SGI electoral areas. The SGITP is also funding the Housing Now landlord-tenant matching program, and will be considering other initiatives in the two electoral areas with a focus on employee housing.
I have recently met with BC Housing staff, who confirmed their commitment to the long-awaited supported housing project on the CRD Drake Road property and to another public meeting this spring.
At my request, the CRD Board advocated to the Province for the inclusion of electoral areas in their suite incentive program (providing forgivable loans of up to $40,000 for new accessory dwelling units), to which the B.C. government has recently agreed. Also at my request, the CRD Board had previously asked for inclusion of SSI in the provincial Speculation and Vacancy Tax. It is also my hope that the Islands Trust pursue inclusion in provincial legislation requiring owner-occupation of short-term vacation rentals.
Harbour Management
I will be participating in a CRD workshop regarding possible harbour management options in marine waters bordering Sidney, North Saanich and Central Saanich. These municipalities have formed a sub-regional CRD service to examine management alternatives. None have as yet been pursued due to the lack of support from provincial and federal governments, which have primary jurisdiction over the marine seabed and waters. On SSI, the many liveaboards in Ganges Harbour are also understandably fearful that any management regime might render them homeless. Representatives of senior governments and First Nations, along with other local stakeholders will also be invited to the CRD workshop.
By ADAM OLSEN
MLA, Saanich North and the Islands
I have a deep connection to the beautiful place we live. I belong here, and this perspective informs the way I advocate, engage and relate to the people, to the land and to all the flora and fauna.
Reflecting on the past six years that I have been MLA for Saanich North and the Islands; I am proud of the advocacy work of our community office. From day one we have aspired to be community-centred, advocating for constituents who contact us, while proactively working to bring people together on important issues to build local resilience.
My approach has been informed in part by Peter MacLeod’s work (MASS LBP) in the early 2000s on The Constituency Project. Conversations with Peter offered rich insights on how we could effectively engage with the constituency, stay connected and also be a connector. This constituent-centred approach was inspired by my experience working in local businesses like the Butchart Gardens, where professional, personal and prompt customer service was emphasized.
Creating an effective and efficient approach to advocacy has and continues to be an iterative process. It’s important to recognize and acknowledge the constituency advocates who have worked in the community office since 2017. Their efforts refined and improved our approach.
Over the last year alone our office has engaged in advocacy on roughly 687 different case files. These cases can range from anything as straightforward as responding to an inquiry about provincial services, to convening stakeholders and facilitating efforts to change existing provincial policies and legislation.
Our office is non-partisan and responsive to any issues or concerns related to provincial jurisdiction. However, we focus our advocacy on the issues that are most important to the constituents of Saanich North and the Islands. Over the last six years, this means that we have focused primarily on transportation, healthcare, housing, waterways/nature, Indigenous Peoples and local governance in the Southern Gulf Islands.
While not the only metric of progress, these efforts have resulted in real and tangible investments in the community.
Between 2017 and 2023, the provincial government has invested more than $300 million in Saanich North and the Islands in areas such as affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, education, transportation, rural broadband connectivity and Covid-19 recovery. These investments have been consistent across both minority and majority governments with an investment of roughly $158 million from 2017-2020 (minority government), and roughly $148 million between 2020-2023 (majority government).
None of these investments are possible without the community making them a priority. I raise my hands to the mayors and councillors, CRD electoral area directors, Islands Trust trustees, and their local government administrations, local community groups and individuals for their work in community to prepare grant applications and to effectively administer and steward projects.
While the provincial government cannot financially support all the worthy project applicants, we will continue to work with proponents to advocate for, and support, their initiatives.
Whether you have never connected with our office or do so frequently, I encourage you to reach out. We are here to support you, or your community organization. Please do not hesitate to contact me and our team of community advocates at Adam.Olsen.MLA@leg.bc.ca, by calling 250-655-5600 or visiting our community office on 9828 Fourth Street in Sidney, BC. For more information visit www.saanichnorthandtheislands.com/.
SUBMITTED BY JANE PETCH
for the Native Plant Stewardship Group
The Native Plant Stewardship Group (NPSG) would like to thank the generous islanders and agencies that have supported and embraced the Invasive Plant Drop-Off events since 2010.
Last year, 2023, was the most successful ever with over 172 loads delivered in vehicles ranging from Smart cars to moving vans. At least 10 tons of invasive plants were collected over the three drop-offs.
This year the NPSG will no longer be conducting these drop-offs. We are looking at other options to dispose of broom, gorse, spurge laurel, blackberry, holly, ivy and other non-native invasive weeds.
The sheer amount of invasive plants, the lack of a home base, the difficulty in finding enough chippers for specific dates and the cost of chipping itself, have become more challenging over the past 14 years. As the piles have become higher, so has the age of the small core of women organizing these events, with most now in their 60s and 70s.
The ideal solution for invasive weed disposal would be a permanent location where broom and other invasives could be dropped off more frequently, where the plants could be chipped at the operators’ convenience, and where the chips with no seeds could be available to farmers.
We have contacted a number of agencies in the community, with the goal of developing a better system to dispose of invasive plants. In the meantime, there are a number of ways to dispose of these noxious weeds.
Salt Spring Garbage accepts invasive plants at the cost of $.35 per kilogram. These plants are not accepted as part of the green waste pile but rather go to the landfill.
There are local chippers on the island that will come to neighbourhood locations or homes and will chip invasive plants that have been cut and piled. Some pods have organized neighbourhood cuts and a group chipping.
If you have only a few plants, you can scatter them under trees in the shade or pile them under a tarp to break down and feed the soil. You can solarize them in a light-blocking black plastic bag and they can also be buried. Take great care burning any broom or gorse because they are covered with volatile oils and are extremely flammable. Goats eat ivy and green broom, which is a natural dewormer.
The NPSG, a working group of Transition Salt Spring, began as the Salt Spring Island Conservancy’s Broom Committee in 2010 to address the rapid spread of broom on the island.
For more information on chippers, and how to remove and dispose of non-native invasive plants, please see the Transition Salt Spring website.
We would like to thank the firefighters who have provided the labour at the drop-offs in the last number of years. And thanks to all of you who continue to address the challenge posed by invasive plants as climate change proceeds and summer drought deepens. Broom’s extreme flammability and negative impact on native plants is only one example of how useful it is to remove the invasives.
Thanks also to the Community Gospel Chapel and Fulford Hall, which so generously offered us their land at no cost for our chipping events.
We look forward to continuing to promote the removal of broom and gorse and other non-native invasive weeds, and to provide information and support to those who wish to remove invasive plants in their area. We will continue to promote the development of a more permanent disposal system.
As we move from one system to the next, the stewardship group looks forward to partnering with the next evolution in our combined community effort to keep Salt Spring more fire-safe and ecologically diverse.
By LAUREN PORTER
Special to the Driftwood
Three years ago, I moved to Salt Spring, having decided this is where I would like to raise my child. I spent much time in the Gulf Islands as a kid and came to fall in love with this coast and its unique cultures.
We are all aware that garbage is a huge issue for all of the islands, given we are responsible for our own disposal of garbage, which costs money, with all the rural spaces that have been used as dumping zones and with a history of burning/ burying garbage, we have a complex relationship with waste on this island.
I distinctly recall being a child on Galiano Island and driving around with my caregiver who would constantly stop her truck to load up any garbage seen on the side of the road. “We all have to keep this island clean and work together” she would tell me. I have maintained this as a value ever since and I am so grateful that I had an adult instill this value in me.
Upon moving to Salt Spring, I had heard of this guy “Beach Dave,” as he is known, who was going around on his own time to collect garbage. How cool I thought! While I began to get familiar with our community members, many in the Ganges area, I discovered some really amazing gems, including Beach Dave. At the time, he was going through a rough period and shared that he was leaving the island for a bit to work on some of his health issues. I sensed he was worried about who would maintain garbage collection in his absence. I thought maybe my then four-year-old son and I might be able to help. After all, my child is always telling me we need to pick up the garbage. I mentioned this to Dave and within a day he had put together a bucket and child-size pick-up stick and bags for us. We met and walked along some of the busy garbage routes on the island and learned his process.
About a week later, after we thought Dave had left the island, we saw him walking down the road in his famous bright yellow overalls (sometimes in a swanky suit), collecting garbage. I checked in and learned that he had gone off island to try and access medical support, of which he was denied. Feeling defeated, he returned but with this fire inside of him to keep going and make healthy choices. It’s now been several weeks and I see Dave out every day cleaning. A friend noticed white pearl beads of styrofoam at Burgoyne Bay and raised concern. Within days, Beach Dave had helped to facilitate a group initiative where we, a group of at least five people, spent the day sifting foam off the beach and hauling garbage away. Honestly, it was one of the most beautiful days on this island I have had. Even a youth group came out to volunteer with the clean up.
Since then I have learned that Beach Dave has a whole kids program he developed to teach about taking care of the earth. He has created trash pick-up games, has prizes for kiddos collecting trash, and just this last week spent an afternoon with a school class on the beach doing a cleanup. Most recently he met with Capital Regional District personnel to try and encourage more garbage bins in the downtown core and invited them to join in a “jump in the creek” to clean it out behind the United Church. It ended up happening with huge success. All of this he says is “to make sure we leave a cleaner earth for the next generations.”
Here is the catch . . . He has been paying to dispose of bags upon bags of garbage with his own money and all the time he spends cleaning our island is done without any pay.
I am watching the motivation in this man spread like wildfire right now as more and more people are getting involved. I have seen the way my child lights up when he collects the next piece of trash off the ground and I hear him telling his little friends, “We have to take care of this earth.” I have observed this act of picking up trash motivate this man to find better health for himself. I myself feel a sense of community when I go out and have a social day collecting foam off the beaches and now there is a bi-weekly group cleanup which has become my social outings on weekends. Never did I think this would be so fun and meaningful.
I am asking our community to help support this initiative. I am a social worker by trade and I have seen what happens to folks when they find a sense of purpose, make healthy choices, engage in community and help future generations. All of this is happening through picking up this trash. I am asking folks to please contribute to this cause. Some ways that you can do this are:
1. Beach Dave’s GoFundMe page.
2. Donate Mid-Island Co-op points to 1429638.
3. Donate Return-it bottles to “Beach Dave’s Cleanup.”
4. Donate to Chuan Society at Island Savings. The society is supporting a collection of donations for Beach Dave’s project.
Please join the “Beach Dave’s Salt Spring Island Cleanup” Facebook page for regular updates about bi-weekly clean ups, tips for keeping kids safe while collecting garbage and footage of the great work that’s already happened.
There was little said, and no action taken by Salt Spring land use officials last week after islanders voiced their opposition to an unpermitted dog kennel still operating on a Blackburn Road property.
As of Tuesday, no application had been opened by Salty Dog Retreat & Rescue, according to Trust staff — not to seek a rezoning that might “legalize” the contravening use, nor to request an amendment to the island’s official community plan (OCP) to allow it to operate. Either action might have prompted consideration by Salt Spring’s Local Trust Committee (LTC) to halt enforcement actions while those applications were being reviewed.
But neighbours and others concerned about the health of the nearby watershed brought the issue before the LTC on Thursday, Feb. 15 regardless, in a show of letters, public comment and delegations that helped the meeting’s agenda packet top 270 pages — not exceptional for the notoriously prolix Islands Trust, but there were relatively few other items already under consideration.
Back in April 2023, Salty Dog Retreat’s Jaime Halan-Harris approached planners for a temporary use permit (TUP) to operate the kennel at its new site, after a hasty relocation from its long-time operation on Rainbow Road. The kennel began operations almost immediately upon moving to Blackburn Road and was soon subject to multiple bylaw enforcement actions.
The TUP was denied somewhat routinely, as the property’s Watershed and Islet Residential designation under the OCP doesn’t allow for exceptions under the Islands Trust’s TUP process. That triggered backlash from Salty Dog supporters, who crowded the LTC’s December meeting along with Halan-Harris seeking a path forward.
With that path still uncertain — and with land use contraventions seemingly ongoing in the interim — islanders concerned for the nearby Cusheon Lake watershed took their turn before the LTC on Thursday. Following several public comments from residents, two delegations on the matter — from Chris Drake representing the Salt Spring Island Water Preservation Society and Doreen Hewitt from the Cusheon Lake Stewardship Committee — drove home similar points: the Blackburn Road site, they said, is the wrong place for a kennel.
Drake said the 40-year-old non-profit society was concerned not just about the dog kennel operation, which he said represented a source of potential contamination of surface and groundwater from both dog and human feces, but also that amending the OCP for such a use would establish an unwelcome precedent.
“Such an amendment — or rezoning — could potentially weaken regulations and watershed protection,” said Drake, as climate change pointed toward heavier winter rainfall producing “increasingly significant” runoff.
“Feces and urine contain high levels of phosphorus, which are shown to be the factor causing previous algal blooms [at Cusheon Lake],” said Drake. “Blooms can produce a toxin lethal to humans and wildlife.”
That possibility was alarming to the more than 500 people who rely on the lake for drinking water, speakers said; Hewitt told trustees they had made the “correct choice” in November to deny a temporary use permit and “close the file” — for the health of the watershed, and the protection process.
“Many developers do not seek a permit first,” said Hewitt. “They want forgiveness, rather than permission. This is dangerous for the protection of fresh water on Salt Spring.”
Full comments can be read online at islandstrust.bc.ca/event/ssi-ltc-2024-2. Trustees received the delegations, public comments and letters largely without comment; the next LTC meeting is scheduled for March 7.
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