Crystal Mountain Meeting
Posted August 31, 2001Yet another "open house" for the proposed development at Crystal Mountain. The next one is on September 19, 2001, and will take place at Sensisyusten House of Learning. The address is 1920 Quail Lane, Westbank. This is on Tsinstikeptum IR #9, and is off of Ridge Estates Road, near Elk Road and East Boundary Roads.
At the meeting, head straight for BCAL staff, provincial ministry staff, and local government staff to voice your concerns. Make certain to get their addresses, and follow up with a brief letter. While it is important to attend these meetings to let them know we care, only letters sent to BCAL and the other government agencies will make a difference.
This map shows where Quail Road is located.
Powers Creek
Posted August 31, 2001Unfortunately, the Powers Creek kokanee spawning bed work was not completed this year. Due to the timelines imposed by fishery windows and overlap with the Eneas project, we made the difficult decision to go with one creek / fishery project this summer.
Eneas Habitat Improvement gets the go-ahead
Posted July, 2001We finally got the go-ahead for the Eneas Lake habitat improvement project. This project started over a year ago. and has involved several trips to the site with fisheries and parks staff, consultation with everyone from the Dam Safety branch, the Fisheries branch, to BC Parks.
We will be proceeding during the fisheries work window at the end of August - likely the weekend of August 25-26, 2001. The phoning comittee will be calling every member to enlist volunteers to show up anytime between now and the 25. The plan is in the Eneas report (PDF copy of the complete report is an 860kb download).
Anyone who has a couple of hours available to spend helping out on the project should call Darren Schlamp or Al Springer. We need to collect large cobbles (20cm-45cm diameter, or 8-18 inches) and stockpile them 10-15 feet away from the creek for use in building an in-stream structure at the end of August. We need to collect naturally-occuring rocks, so please do not collect rocks from the dam (although if anyone wants to remove a few of the boulders in the road, that might be a good idea). We will beed the equivalent of 1.5-2 dump truck loads of rock, which works out to around a half-dozen rocks per member.
We are planning the project as a combination fishing weekend /work party. Work first, fishing later. Due to the need for on-site monitoring and the limited work window, we need as many people as possible to pitch in to help improve a local fishery.
Powers Creek
Posted July 26, 2001The PSA historically placed gravel into the kokanee spawning channel in Powers Creek, although no work was done last year. The kokanee returns were promising last year, and we understand that the Fisheries Branch of the Ministry of Water Land and Air Protection feels it may be worthwhile to place some more gravel into the spawning beds this year. Once we have a permit from the ministry, it is a good days work, and will also likely take place in mid-late August. More info will be posted once someone provides an update.
Crystal Mountain Section Added
Posted June 27, 2001A new section has been added - Crystal Mtn. Information relating to the massive development proposed by Pheidias at Crystal Mountain will be archived in this new section.
A rather choice quote was observed in the newspaper recently.
"I understand there's a group of hunters up there who are concerned about it, but saving habitat to use for shooting animals is not any better than using it for development"Glenn Stewart, Enkon Environmental Ltd. - lead environmental consultant for the proposed Crystal Mountain Development by Pheidias Development Management Corporation, as quoted in the Kelowna Capital News, Page A12, Wednesday June 27, 2001.
It is difficult to comprehend how anyone who claims to be an environmental consultant can equate permanent habitat loss caused by development with sustainable resource management. Open mouth, insert foot. Funny how comments like that tend to stick in one's mind though.
Peachland Council Meeting
Posted June 27, 2001Several PSA members were present at the Tuesday night Peachland town council meeting, on June 26. The Mayor and Councillors expressed concerns regarding water supply to the developers. In addition, the PSA and Telemark Ski Club were invited by the Mayor to ask questions regarding their concerns.
Unfortunately, no-one was able to respond to the three questions from the PSA, although the developers representatives indicated that they would respond in writing. Our three questions were roughly as follows:
- Were the developers aware of the LRMP mapping which differed substantially from the mapping provided by the developer's environmental consultant Enkon (see quote above to get a feel for Enkon's views on habitat loss)?
- What mechanism could they propose to ensure that remaining crown land between the proposed development and Glenrosa is protected, to prevent infill development?
- Were the developers willing to conduct a Cumulative Effects Assessment to assess not only the impacts of their development, but also the regional impacts from historic conditions?
The cumulative effects are a critical issue, as the existing winter range for the mule deer herd which winters in upper Glenrosa is only a fraction of what it was 150 years ago. Basically, how much of a resource are we willing to destroy? Is 20% too much? 50%?
BC Assets and Lands Letter
Posted June 27, 2001The PSA sent a letter to BC Assets and Lands Corporation regarding the proposed development at Crystal Mountain. A copy of the letter is available here.
Peachland Council Meeting
Posted June 21, 2001The Tuesday night Peachland Town Council meeting will feature a presentation by Pheidias Development Management Corporation regarding their proposed development at Last Mountain. The meeting should start at around 7pm, June 26. It would be nice to have the place filled with opponents of the project.
Linkrot Alert
Posted June 21, 2001I just updated a few BC Government links. Of course, this was an exercise in futility, as the changes to the Ministry names will mean I get to do it again next month. Whee!
In a related topic, I found the coolest BC Government mapping site recently. Go to the LRMP Mapsite, and click on MapService (in the top title bar). It is quite worthwhile.
You need a Java-enabled browser. What you get is a GIS-type interface to a ton of local data - you can select from all the layers in the LRMP dataset, including some primitive TRIM map features, and display them for any portion of the Okanagan. For those developers in the audience, you may want to compare the Mule Deer RMZ to your consultant's reports.
Summerland Range Operating Rules
Posted June 7, 2001The operating rules for the Summerland Range are now available under the heading Summerland Range Rules in the menu to the right. For further information regarding the range, contact Ray Pike or Al Springer
June Wine and Cheese
Revised May 30, 2001The wine and cheese will take place on June 20, 2001. It will start at 7:30, at Mina-Jean Smith's house. BYOC - bring your own chairs, or else you will have to sit on the grass. Bring a jacket as well, just in case - it can still get quite cool in the evenings, especially if there is any wind.
This will be the final meeting before summer. The proposed budget will be reviewed at this meeting, as will events planned for the summer break.
Family Fishing Weekend
Posted May 30, 2001PSA members are invited to a family fishing weekend on June 15, 16 and 17, 2001. This weekend is also the BC Family Fishing Weekend (discussed below), so please bring friends along. The event is tentatively planned for Grizzly Lake (near Haddeau Lake, north of Ideal - accessible from Philpot Road in Joe Rich). Contact Al Springer for more details and a map to the campsite location.
Last Mountain
Posted May 24, 2001An open house was held in Westbank on May 24, 2001 by Pheidias Development Management Corporation to provide information to local residents regarding their proposed resort development at Last Mountain.
They presented an ambitious development plan, which could see approximately 600 homes along with hotels and a convention centre spread out in an area bounded to the south by the Telemark K-9 trail, to the east by Jackpine Road, to the west by Jack Creek, and to the north by an expanded ski area. The footprint of the downhill ski area will be increased approximately five-fold, and a golf course will cover everything from the Fern Creek area at the north end of Telemark Ski Club to the base of the existing ski hill.
This area has been used for a variety of recreation activities by Westside residents and club members for generations. Common activities in this area include snowmobiling, motor-biking, cross-country skiing, backcountry skiing, horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking, snow-shoeing, and hunting to name a few. There are also traplines present in the area, and it is deer winter range. The mapping at the meeting showed deer winter range as being just downhill and to the west of the development. I guess I should have told the deer I saw in in the proposed condominium development back in January that they were in the wrong place.
The development is designed to be below the threshold of reviewable projects under the Environmental Assessment Act. As such, there will be limited opportunity for public input, and most decisions will be made by the RDCO board (shudder), and bureaucrats in Kamloops and Penticton who are not familiar with the area. It is critical that we make our voices heard immediately.
All club members who are concerned about this project should contact Al Springer or Darren Schlamp as soon as possible, as we will be meeting with other groups who have an interest in the natural resources of this area. The site is currently Crown land, and comment forms are available to send to BC Assets and Lands Corporation in Kamloops.
Pheidias Development Management Corporation has some experience in working through environmental impact assessments -here is their Jumbo Creek ski resort proposal near Invermere (the environmental impact process has taken 6 years to date). They also appear to have been involved in the new ski resort near Golden BC.
The East Kootenay Environmental Society also has an information page on Jumbo Creek.
Family Fishing Weekend June 15-17, 2001
Posted May 24, 2001The BC Family Fishing Weekend takes place again this year. It is an excellent opportunity to take friends, family or neighbours fishing, especially those who would otherwise not have the opportunity to enjoy fishing. Dig out that spare gear, and take advantage of the time between bites to introduce them to the values of the conservation movement.
May Meeting
Posted May 24, 2001The May meeting of the PSA took place on May 17, 2001 at Fourth Street Place in Peachland. Brian Jantz, who is in charge of small lakes for the environment ministry for this region, was our guest speaker.
Brian spoke about recent stocking initiatives, and gave an excellent presentation. His overview of fish growth in selected lakes, and the methods used to measure lake productivity and angler effort were of particular interest.
Al's E-mail Archive
Posted May 13, 2001For those of you who may be interested in seeing some of the resolutions from the 2001 BCWF Convention, Al Springer has scanned most of the material and sent it out in his daily e-mails over the past few weeks. The archive location is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psportsmansIt appears that you have to sign up to view the list.
Test Page
Posted May 13, 2001I want to convert to using more CSS for layout. Unfortunately, while CSS is the way of the future, it may not display properly in browsers with a version number below 4.x. CSS allows me to do interesting things in version 5 or 6 browsers, and is still viewable in old browsers (like the one Judie uses) - it just does not look as good without CSS support. Please look at this page, and let me know if it does not display the same for you. By the way, the test page only looks like it uses tables - blocks and absolute positioning are wondrous things
Yet Another Modest Proposal
Posted a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....Asolution is before us which will lead to new levels of excellence in game management. Not for the faint of heart, or the humour-impaired.