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- Wednesday - Feb. 5, 2025 - Kent wastewater plants breaks down (while it's broken down)
Wednesday - Feb. 5, 2025 - Kent wastewater plants breaks down (while it's broken down)
Grace Kennedy
February 05, 2025
❄ High -3C
Good morning!
My poor little Corolla has been in the shop for a week now to repair the damage caused by the deer that T-boned me a couple months ago. I’m very aware that everything takes longer than you’d think—and yet I still end up shaking my head at the length of time it takes to replace two doors that don’t even have power windows. Which just goes to show, I suppose, that there’s nothing you can really do to stop people from demanding things happen faster than is possible. And really, I’m fine with them keeping the car as long as they want. Because what my courtesy car lacks in winter tires, it more than makes up for in heated seats.
– 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
Five acres for $32 million: the sky-high price of school land
The Langley School District is set to purchase a new school site for more than $30 million. 🗺 Google/Tyler Olsen
The cost of a future school in a rapidly developing Langley neighbourhood has pushed past the $30 million mark—and actual construction is still years away.
Last week, Langley's school district approved the purchase of a new five-acre elementary school site in Willoughby for $32.5 million. The figure is $7 million more than the school district had expected two years ago when it asked the province to fund the purchase of the site. Although most of the money is coming from the province's coffers, the district will kick in about $3 million.
Related
Need to Know
🚨 A 19-year-old man is dead after an assault and apparent abduction in Abbotsford last week [Global]
💰 Langley’s Willowbrook Park mall has been sold for $137 million [Storeys] / It’s a lot of money but $77 million less than Abbotsford’s Sevenoaks Shopping Centre fetched in 2017 [Abbotsford News]
🏉 A major rugby tournament in Langley has been postponed because of the snow [Canada West]
👉 Cory Cassel, the director for the Fraser Valley Regional District’s Electoral Area G, says he is lucky to be alive and thankful for help after a head-on crash [Cory Cassel/Facebook]
🔌 Electric vehicle chargers are being installed at Abbotsford’s ICBC centre [Abbotsford News]
🚔 The husband of Trina Hunt, whose body was found near Hope, has been charged in connection with her disappearance [CTV]
🚓 Police seized more than a kilo of fentanyl from four homes across the valley [Chilliwack Progress]
👏 After more than a decade leading Hope’s Legion, Ian Williams is stepping down [Hope Standard]
🚑 Toxic drug deaths declined in Langley and in Abbotsford last year, but remain historically high [Aldergrove Star/Abbotsford News]
🗳 Abbotsford residents have until the end of today to enter a contest to win 40 pounds of locally made, totally organic … compost [City of Abbotsford]
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SPONSORED BY FORT LANGLEY JAZZ & ARTS FESTIVAL
Don't miss out on the blues event of the year
The 2025 Cool Blues Show is bringing the heat to Fort Langley on July 25, at Fort Langley Community Park. Get ready for an unforgettable night of blues, electric energy and good vibes.
The Cool Blues Show features:
🎤 A stellar line-up of outstanding Juno-award-winning blues performers
🍻 Refreshing drinks at the Expedia Cruises (North Langley) Blues & Brews Beer Garden🍔 Delicious food trucks
🎨 Stunning art vendors & installations
🎲 Games and good times
This will be a night that’ll have you dancing, singing and soaking in the magic of the blues all night long in historic Fort Langley!
Don’t miss out on early bird tickets, available now until April 30! Snag your spot and save before prices go up.
The Agenda
A failure at the Mount Woodside Wastewater Treatment Plant forced the District of Kent to haul residents’ waste to its main treatment plant along the banks of the Fraser. 📷 District of Kent
Rural wastewater treatment plan stung by failures
The Mount Woodside Wastewater Treatment Plant experienced a series of issues in the last few months of 2024.
The troubled treatment plant shut down in late November when waste plugged several of the plants’ filters. What staff had originally hoped was an easily fixed blockage turned out to be a larger problem stemming from faulty start-up and testing procedures of the plant in 2021, when the plant began operating.
After taking apart and cleaning the components causing the problem, staff determined that the material used for testing the filters before the plant came online four years ago had been too thick and had been keeping the filters from working perfectly ever since, according to a report to the District of Kent.
When the plant was offline to diagnose and fix the filter issue between Nov. 25 and Dec. 2nd, a power surge blew a fuse on a valve required to run the plant. During the two weeks that the plant was down, all the waste produced in the Mount Woodside area was trucked to the Agassiz Wastewater Treatment Plant.
These are not the first issues that the wastewater plant has had since it opened in 2021. Other problems have popped up in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The plant is once again operational and the District says it is working with the firm that built the facility to correct the “numerous construction and design deficiencies.
-Grace Giesbrecht, Local Journalism Initiative
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🗓 Things to do
Swing dance: The Bez Arts Hub in Langley hosts an all-ages community swing dance on Friday. The evening starts with a swing dance lesson at 7:30pm, and dancing continues until 10:30pm. Details and tickets online.
Folk at the Clarke: Cape Breton folk group Beòlach plays at Mission's Clarke Theatre on Saturday starting at 7:30pm. Details and tickets online.
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