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- Wednesday - Aug. 7, 2024 - A new air-quality station
Wednesday - Aug. 7, 2024 - A new air-quality station
Tyler Olsen
August 07, 2024
In partnership with
☀ High 24C
Good morning!
As a journalist, you arrive in a new community with zero story ideas. It can take some time to get to the point where you can continually discover interesting and newsworthy things to write about. But eventually, one reaches the point where you not only have enough story ideas to occupy yourself, but more than you can ever hope to write. And so ideas can linger for months, if not years. Then, wham! A landslide happens and sends a barrage of logs hurtling down the Fraser River and suddenly there’s a reason to make good on your years-long plan to write about the Fraser Valley Debris Trap.
On a similar note, today’s newsletter was going to feature the recipe for the amazing pie Grace wrote about yesterday. But we decided to go with logs instead. You’ll get your pie tomorrow.
– Tyler
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Traffic & Weather
🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope
🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.
🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.
NEWS
Can the Fraser Valley’s tree trap meet the Chilcotin’s challenge?
The Chilcotin River landslide sent a huge amount of wood into the Fraser River and toward Vancouver. Much of it will end up in a critical piece of infrastructure near Agassiz. 📷 Tsilhqot'in National Government; BC Government
It’s showtime for one of British Columbia’s most underappreciated pieces of infrastructure.
As the landslide-turned-dam blocking the Chilcotin River gave way Monday, it sent a torrent of water hurtling toward the Fraser Valley. But not just water.
As all that river rushed into the Fraser, it brought thousands of trees with it. Some came from the landslide that had stalled the river for days. Others were new casualties, tumbling from banks into the surging river. Fifty years ago, the logs would have ended up scattered on popular beaches or battering boats in and around Vancouver.
But thanks to a couple of long booms and a tiny island, much of the debris will end up snared next to a tiny island near Agassiz. Meet the Fraser River Debris Trap.
The Chilcotin’s water was expected to arrive in Hope around midnight last night. The river is expected to rise nearly a metre, but flooding is not anticipated. Officials warn people to stay away from riverbanks there and along the Fraser downstream.
Related
Need to Know
🚔 The Langley man shot and killed Friday has been identified [CTV]
🚨 Court documents suggested a Brothers Keeper gang associate was behind an attempted murder in Abbotsford [Vancouver Sun]
👉 Mission police say a woman used a fake ID to steal someone else’s gold bars from a Canada Post facility [Fraser Valley Today]
⛔ Multiple people are reported to have died in a collision between Chilliwack and Abbotsford that closed the highway Tuesday [CityNews]
❌ Mission’s boat launch has closed due to rising waters from the Chilcotin [Mission Record]; Dewdney Regional Park and Island 22 Regional Park’s boat launch are also closed [FVRD]
🚧 Langley’s 200 Street area could one day be home to as many as 100,000 more people [Langley Advance Times]
🍀 Kelly O’Bryan’s, an Irish-themed restaurant popular in the Interior, is opening a location in Chilliwack [Fraser Valley Today]
⛳ Abbotsford golfer Nick Taylor finished tied for 30th at the Olympic Games [Abbotsford News]
👉 UFV students will walk out of class August 15 in support of women in Afghanistan; a UFV student and Afghan women’s rights activist will speak [UFV]
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The Agenda
A key air quality monitoring station now has its own building. 📷 Fraser Valley Regional District
Agassiz has a new air quality monitoring station
For the last decade, the Fraser Valley Regional District has been checking Agassiz’s air quality from a spare room in Kent’s municipal hall. Now, it finally has its own space in a local park.
Since 2013, the FVRD had been operating an air quality monitoring station out of Kent’s municipal hall, using a spare room in the building to host the equipment that captures the amount of particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen oxides in the air. The District of Kent asked for its room back so it could better serve its own municipal needs, and the FVRD began the process of relocating the monitoring station in 2023.
The FVRD purchased a building that was installed in Agassiz’s Centennial Park (near the recreation centre and agricultural hall). It was a natural choice for the station since it was relatively close to the municipal hall, allowing for better data continuity, and had good airflow.
Construction of the new site began in February of this year, and equipment was installed in the building in early July. The station is now operational, although it needs a final calibration to ensure the data is accurate. The FVRD plans to add educational signage to the outside of the building later this summer, similar to what was added to the station at Mill Lake in Abbotsford.
The FVRD operates six air quality monitoring stations throughout the valley. You can see their data reporting in real time here.
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🗓 Things to do
Party at Cultus: Cultus Lake hosts its Party in the Park on Friday, Aug. 9. Enjoy a free concert by Elvis tribute artist Steve Elliott starting at 7pm. Details online.
Free swim lessons: Abbotsford's Centennial Pool is hosting free swim lessons from noon to 2pm on Friday, Aug. 9. Space is limited, so arrive early. Details online.
Chilliwack’s fair: The 152nd annual Chilliwack Fair is back at Chilliwack Heritage Park from Friday, Aug. 9 to Sunday, Aug. 11. Check out 4H shows, the rodeo, home and garden exhibits, and more. Details and tickets online.
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