Tuesday - Sept. 17, 2024 - Langley's new tree plan

🌧 High 16C

Good morning!

On Friday, we sent out a mass email to non-members asking them to help support the journalism that makes our award-worthy stories possible. Insiders didn’t get that email (on account of already being members!) so I just wanted to pause and say thank you. The type of journalism a publication produces has as much to do with its audience as its reporters. The fact that our members support us doesn’t just keep us going as an entity, it provides a financial reason to not deviate from the type of coverage we provide. Every publication has a choice about whether to prioritize quantity over depth. Algorithms and pageviews skewed those choices over the 2010s. But our members provide a very real reason to stay the course. Thank you all.

(On that same topic, our stories have been very policy- and politics-oriented over the last month. Probably a little too much so. While that trend may continue through the provincial election, please know that we also want to keep pursuing the stories about real live humans that bring a vibrancy to any publication. If you’ve got someone who we should talk to and highlight, let us know.)

– Tyler

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope (We have had to temporarily change our forecast links to the Weather Network due to a technical error.)

🚘 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

Could this be a cheaper, safer way to protect Sumas Prairie?

With Abbotsford’s $3 billion plan to protect Sumas Prairie yet to receive the funding needed to allow it to proceed, experts are considering a range of alternatives, including a plan suggested by BC’s former Inspector of Dikes.

Neil Peters says a floodway that runs south of the former Sumas Lake bed, rather than north of it, has the potential to offer more protection for less money than the flood plan sketched out by the City of Abbotsford. The southern floodway concept would require significant study to determine its feasibility, Peters cautioned. But he said that its benefits are worth consideration as politicians and flood experts on both sides of the border try to find a solution to the threat posed by the Nooksack River.

• Today, Tyler writes about Peters’ Vedder Mountain Floodway, and its potential benefits and pitfalls.

Related

Need to Know

⚖ The family of a Chilliwack couple killed last year says justice is still ‘agonizingly out of reach’ one year after their death [Chilliwack Progress]

👉 A prison guard smuggled an array of contraband into Kent Institution in Agassiz, the province alleges in a civil forfeiture lawsuit [Vancouver Sun]

🗳 Former BC United candidate Karen Long has decided to run as an independent in Langley-Abbotsford [Langley Advance Times] / Fellow BC United candidate and Langley Township councillor Barb Martens will not run in Langley-Walnut Grove [Langley Advance Times]

🚫 A Hatzic property owner in hot water for illegal dumping is also facing fines for an unpermitted cannabis production facility [Mission Record]

🌽 The Agassiz Fall Fair spirit was not dampened by heavy rain over the weekend [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

🎒 The Chilliwack School District has nearly 100 portables, and even with school expansions, they are unlikely to go away any time soon [Fraser Valley Today]

📄 Local governments are ‘stretched to the limit’ by homelessness, housing, and emergency management, a UBCM report says [Chilliwack Progress] / Local government officials are meeting to discuss housing, toxic drugs, public safety, and more at the annual Union of BC Municipalities convention this week [CTV]

💰 The Mission Terry Fox Run raised more than $9,500 for cancer research [Mission Record]

📺 1-800-GOT-JUNK CEO and new member of CBC’s Dragon’s Den Brian Scudamore will be in Abbotsford to talk about the show next Wednesday [Abbotsford News]

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The Agenda

Langley City puts price tag on tree value

Langley City’s roughly 49,000 trees are hard at work for the city, providing the city with more than $481,900 in services each year, municipal staff have found in a new analysis.

According to the draft Urban Forest Management Strategy, the city’s trees sequester roughly 450 tons of carbon each year, essentially taking 1,649 tons of CO2 out of the air annually. The city says the trees also help remove significant amounts of air pollutants, and suck up 48.6 million litres of stormwater that would have otherwise moved through the city’s sewer system.

The estimates were quantified by software developed by the US Department of Agriculture, and help provide a monetary value for an asset that is most often admired for its intangible, natural benefits.

Langley City has roughly 17% tree cover in the municipality. Most of the trees are located south of the Nicomekl River, near the border between Langley City and the township. Only one-third are located on municipal property. Those include roughly 6,000 street trees, 2,400 park trees, and 8,100 other trees on municipal property.

The city has a goal of increasing its canopy cover to 20% by 2046—a plan that would require roughly 1,080 new trees planted each year. It has also used a “tree equity score” to identify which neighbourhoods are the most in need of more trees. (Those neighbourhoods are largely in the northern half of the city, where high surface temperatures and significant vulnerable populations make the introduction of shade trees more important.)

The full draft Urban Forest Management Strategy can be found here.

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