Monday - Feb. 5 2024 - Fixing poop pipes

☁️ High 7C

Good morning!

It’s been a while since I left a book recommendation in here for you. But I have a great suggestion this morning. I’m currently reading Greenwood, a novel by Canadian author Michael Christie. It’s set in Canada and begins on an island in (I think) the Georgia Strait. And besides the prose (which is stunning) and the concept (which is scary) I’m really enjoying the setting—the temperate rainforests around Vancouver and Vancouver Island—which are so much more familiar than the settings of so many other novels I’ve read. Liking this book for this reason is, of course, really sad, but you’ll have to check out the book to learn why.

– Grace

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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

The $7 million end of the line
for Chilliwack sewage

When you flush your toilet, you send water coursing through a long series of pipes en route to your local wastewater treatment plant. It’s easy to think that plant is the end of the line. It’s not.

And getting your waste to its final destination is no easy, or cheap, feat. 

This year Chilliwack’s taxpayers will spend $7 million—more than $250 per resident—to fix the massive pipe that carries its wastewater from its treatment plant into the centre of the Fraser.

• Today, Tyler writes about a project to fix Chilliwack’s outfall pipe—and about the other pipes that carry wastewater under, and sometimes into, the Fraser River.

Related

Need to Know

🏒 Hockey families in Canada and the US are demanding answers from a pair of brothers who didn’t deliver on their promises [CTV]

🚓 A man was shot in Chilliwack and taken to hospital Sunday [CityNews]

✒️ Lytton poet Meghan Fandrich talks about sharing her poetry and becoming more visible [Read Local BC]; We spoke to Fandrich about her debut poetry collection last year [FVC]

👮‍♂️ An Abbotsford Police dog handler was acquitted of an assault charge [Abbotsford News]

🚨 A Chilliwack senior was hit by a taxi and seriously injured [Chilliwack Progress]

💵 Langley Township will need to pay $2.8 million more for a park it wants to build [Langley Advance Times]

🕺Aldergrove hall is bringing back monthly music nights [Langley Advance times]

🏫 Langley’s school trustees want to rally colleagues around the province to ask the province to build new schools quicker [Aldergrove Star]

🚑 An Abbotsford senior was killed in a mid-day crash; the driver of the other vehicle was arrested [Global]

🖊 A new agreement between the province and Salish, and Metis organizations will guide how health care is delivered in the Lower Mainland [Chilliwack Progress]

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The Agenda

Abbotsford farm issues Sumas Prairie water warning

An Abbotsford farming company has issued a warning about rapidly increasing demands on the Sumas Prairie water supply.

In a letter to the city, Van Eekelen Enterprises, which grows vegetables on 600 acres on the prairie, writes that pumping capacity among farms that draw water from the prairie’s ditches has significantly increased over the last five years. The company says turf companies are the biggest factor, with one farm drawing up to twice the water of Van Eekelen for half the acreage.

“We have no objection to this irrigation behaviour provided that sufficient flow is available,” the company’s letter states. But, it warns, that demands require “structural improvements” to both ensure enough water makes its way to each farm and to avoid the prospect of conflicts between landowners.

During irrigation season, the Barrowtown Pump Station pumps water out of the Sumas River into the Sumas Lake bottom. The water then makes its way through a series of channels and ditches to various farms, which use pumps to move it to irrigation systems. 

The company is asking that Abbotsford re-instate its drainage, dyking, and irrigation committee. The request will go to that committee’s broader-focused replacement—the Agriculture Advisory Committee—later this week. 

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🗓 Things to do

😂 Puppetry: Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham performs at Abbotsford Centre Feb. 7. Tickets online.

🎨 Art class: Artist John Le Flock is hosting a step-by-step paint class for all experience levels on Saturday, Feb. 10 at Trinity Memorial United Church in Abbotsford. Register online.

🏒 Hockey: The Vancouver Giants host the Wenatchee Wild Saturday, Feb. 10 at the Langley Events Centre. Tickets online.

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Catch up

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