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12 • The Columbia Valley Pioneer March 2, 2007 Life Time Warranty on all Blinds Call The Blind Guy! Interior World (250) 342 4406 No more searching for the lowest mortgage rates… Great rates, products and service www.meridianmortgagesolutions.com Bill Rainbow Mortgage Broker (250) 342-3453 Radermacher Chiropractic and Azure Massage will be in our NEW LOCATION in Parkside Place, across from Pothole Park on March 5 th . Dr. Marika Geis, Naturopathic Physician will be joining us on April 1 st . Windermere Valley Childcare Society invites you to their Bring your family out to dance the night away. Concession selling: pizza, hotdogs, juice, pop and baking. Calling all Veterans, Legion Members and the General Public Royal Canadian Legion Branch #71 is pleased to announce the 80 th Anniversary of our branch. Friday, March 2 nd , 2007 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Invermere Community Hall $ 2 00 Admission $ 5 00 /Family Limbo, door prizes, spot dances, cake walk. You are cordially invited to a dinner and an evening of celebration and entertainment March 24 th . Veterans and spouses must preregister by calling Wendy at the Family Resource Centre 342-4242. Tickets will be available for Legion members and the general public Feb 15 th , at Dave’s Book Bar, Essentials, Lambert Kipp Pharmacy, Home Hardware in Invermere and Canal Flats, Pips General Store, Chamber of Commerce in Radium, Bigway Foods in Fairmont. Let’s make this an evening to remember. See you there! By Brian Geis Pioneer Staff Th e staff and directors of the Regional District of East Kootenay are scrambling to respond to a surprise announcement last month by Interior Health that it will no longer provide potability certifi cation for private wells. In the interim, owners who subdivide their land for development are being referred to private laboratories to have their wells tested. Regional District and Ministry of Transportation bylaws require tested, certifi ed wells in all subdivisions. Historically, Interior Health has provided testing services for private wells at the expense of taxpayers, but has no legislative mandate to do so. According to Interior Health Inspector Ron Popoff , dropping the long-running service helps to “harmonize” Interior Health’s menu of services across the province and will allow the health inspectors to focus on “bigger-picture” water quality issues. Mr. Popoff said Interior Health will continue to comment on public and private water, but will focus its limited time and eff ort on the health of source water and larger systems. Cheers! Th is table was the winning bidder for the privilege of going fi rst through the buff et line at the Windermere Valley Rod and Gun Club Annual Wild Game Dinner at the Community Hall Saturday night. Th e winning bid was $110. Th e annual event is the Rod and Gun Club’s big fundraiser for the year and featured a silent auction and dance. Th is year’s wild game buff et, which was organized and catered by Anne Riches, included elk, moose, deer, bear, antelope, sheep, goose and duck. More than a hundred people turned out for the event. Photo by Brian Geis Interior Health ends long-standing practice of testing private well water “We’re not getting out of private water altogether, but we do not have any regulatory responsibility,” Mr. Popoff explained. “We have limited time and resources and we want that bigger-picture assessment work. Is the water potable? Th at’s only part of the question. Is the source at risk?” Regional District Manager of Planning and Development Services Andrew McLeod said the announcement came as a surprise. Th e regional board of directors are meeting March 2nd to formulate an alternate plan. In the interim, he said, property owners are being referred to accredited labs for private water testing. “I think the lowest common denominator ruled this time,” Mr. McLeod said. “It’s a kind of a bomb that’s been dropped on us. Th ere certainly could be some frustrated developers out there.” Mr. Popoff said the policy will be retroactive to December and any application that hasn’t already received his department’s comments won’t get a response from Interior Health. An Interior Health public health inspector has been asked to appear at the meeting of the regional directors to explain the policy change. Mr. Popoff said his department would comply with the request.
March 2, 2007 By Brian Geis Pioneer Staff Community interest in the Regional District of East Kootenay’s new drive for an offi cial community plan for the lands surrounding Lake Windermere is high. One hundred and twenty people showed up for the public information meeting held last Th ursday at Windermere Community Hall. “I was kind of expecting that,” said regional district planner in charge of the project, Laurie Cordell. “People really seem interested. I think people are really beginning to see that all this development has been going on without any vision.” Th e event included a presentation of the planning process, a question and answer session and exhibits of the planning process and area maps. “Th is meeting gave us an opportunity to introduce the planning process to residents and land owners and provide more information about upcoming opportunities for participation in this process,” she said. “We are pleased with the great community show- ing and hope to see it continue as this process moves forward.” Th e questions and answers, she said, resulted in list of stakeholder concerns. Some questioned what happened to the regional district’s last attempt to create an offi cial plan for the lakeshore. Th e 1996 initiative stalled before meeting approval, she said, due to a study that was never completed and Ms. Cordell also suspects the plan did not have stakeholder approval. Others were concerned with how the will of the Agricultural Land Commission fi gures into the plan. Ms. Cordell said the regional planners will seek the input and approval of the resulting plan by the Agricultural Land Commission, in hopes they will favor the plan in future decision-making. Yet others, she said, were concerned how the planners will strike a balance between the pro-development and anti-development stakeholders. “How do we balance all the diff erent interests?” she said. “Th ere are no hard and fast rules. It’s a bit of an art, I guess, but that is what the public process is The Columbia Valley Pioneer • 13 Stakeholders turn out in droves for Lake Windermere community plan meeting PIONEER CLASSIFIEDS for. Th e public will let you know.” Th e regional district planners have had a great response to the 2,800 questionnaires that went out to stakeholders in January. Already 550 have been returned. Th e April newsletter from the regional district about this proposal, she said, will contain the results of the survey. Ms. Cordell said she is looking forward to the upcoming “envisioning” workshops to take place this summer. Each workshop will involve focus groups of eight volunteers per table describing their vision of the future of the lake shore. “We don’t tell them what we think,” she said. “We ask them what they think, what they want it to look like in fi ve years.” Envisioning workshops, she said, are typically unifying exercises in which participants realize their common interests. Opportunities for public participation, including community workshops, stakeholder meetings, open houses, will guide the development of the plan over the next 18 months, she said. they work �
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