Thursday - Feb. 29, 2024 - The oil spill that took three months to fix

🌦️ High 9C

Good morning!

In a bid to spend less time on social media (because I think it might be rotting my brain) I’ve started trying to learn French on Duolingo. It’s actually a pretty good setup: whenever I pick up my phone to scroll mindlessly, I go do a French lesson instead. The language-learning app, which went mildly viral for its sarcastic characters and passive aggressive daily lesson reminders, has made a pretty good Twitter substitute. Bonne journée!

– Grace

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

An oil spill near the Fraser River
took three months to fix.
Local Indigenous leaders want to know why.

First Nations leaders say they have been waiting nearly three months for a private asphalt company to clean up an early December oil spill reported near sturgeon breeding ground between Chilliwack and Hope.

The spill has triggered warning letters from the province but only recent action. Now local First Nations are questioning why it has taken so long for anything to be done and calling for policy changes

On Tuesday, BC's auditor general said the province's response to hazardous spills was full of shortcomings.

• Today, we’re sharing a story from our friends at the Narwhal about the lack of clean-up at one recent spill next to a key Fraser River spawning ground.

Related

Need to Know

❄️ Winter weather warnings are in effect for many highways, including the Coquihalla, Highway 1, and Highway 3 [Global News]

👱‍♀️ An annual exhibition celebrating women in art will return to Abbotsford galleries [Abbotsford News]

🥶 Langley’s Coldest Night walk raised $32,000 for the local homeless population [Langley Advance Times]

👉️ Mission is planning to build new recreation facilities—and maybe a boardwalk—at Centennial Park and the Mission Leisure Centre [Mission Record]

💗 A Langley school celebrated Pink Shirt Day with a visit from Vancouver Football Club soccer players [Langley Advance Times]

👨‍🚒 Fraser Valley firefighters are going to Chilliwack for specialized training on wildfires that threaten urban areas [Chilliwack Progress]

🏅 Abbotsford athletes brought home six medals from the BC Winter Games [Abbotsford News]

💕 A Chilliwack resident’s leap-year love story started on this day, more than 70 years ago [Chilliwack Progress]

👮‍♂️ Langley cops and firefighters did a polar plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics [Langley Advance Times]; Chilliwack officers jumped into Cultus Lake as part of the fundraiser [Chilliwack Progress]

🔥 Firefighters extinguished a garage fire in Mission on Tuesday night [Mission Record]

SPONSORED BY ELEVATION PICTURES

Witness the Incredible Journey: 500 DAYS IN THE WILD, in select theatres Friday

Award-winning director and cinematographer Dianne Whelan is the first person to complete this epic journey of discovery—hiking, biking, paddling, snowshoeing and skiing across the country.

For a woman in her 50s who is not an extreme athlete, it was sometimes gruelling, occasionally harrowing, often exhilarating and always surprising. She started out alone, disillusioned with the state of the world and worried about climate change, to look for different ways of caring for the land and each other. She ended the journey a bit wiser, more hopeful, in love and with a passion to share this story.

Experience her journey, the film begins in theatres Friday.

The Agenda

Too many daycares downtown, Langley Business Association says

The Downtown Langley Business Association wants Langley City to stop approving new daycares in the downtown core.

Several new businesses have opened in Langley City’s downtown core, which surrounds the Fraser Highway, in the last several months. Two of these new additions are daycares, and another centre is under construction. Five daycares total are open in the downtown area.

“Although we are all supportive of daycares, and recognize they are needed, we feel that five daycares in the downtown core and over ten in total throughout the BIA is enough,” the business association wrote to Langley City council. The downtown area is popular with daycares because it’s near a park, the association said.

The business association warned Langley City council that the daycares, which were opening in “previously valuable retail spaces” could deter other types of businesses from opening in the area in the future. The association suggested a proximity bylaw that would keep daycares spread out—similar to the way cities regulate liquor stores and tattoo shops.

Langley City’s plan to create more childcare spaces’ goal is to have 70 spaces for every 100 kids five and under in the area by 2030. To meet that target, set in 2020, 50 spaces a year would need to be added for kids three and under and 16 spaces a year would be needed for kids aged 3-5. The coverage rate for daycares in Langley City in 2020 was 26.6% for kids under 3 and 55.5% for kids aged 3-5.

While daycare costs have slowly been dropping across the country, spots in daycares are increasingly harder to find, according to a Stats Canada report from last December. Competition for daycare spots in both Langley City and in Langley Township remain high.

Langley city staff said the letter from the business association would be incorporated into a zoning review and would come back before council in the future.

🗓 Things to do this week/end

🎶 Live music: Rowena's Inn at Sandpiper Resort in Harrison Mills hosts musicians Annika and Pete at its Whiskey Business Nights event on Thursday, Feb. 29. Register online.

🏠️ Community theatre: Little Dipper Theatre presents Our Town at the Fort Langley Community Hall from Feb. 29 to March 10. Details online.

🏒 Hockey: The Vancouver Giants host the Kelowna Rockets on Friday, March 1 at the Langley Events Centre. Tickets online.

Want even more? Insider members get a comprehensive events listing every Thursday, plus a weekly Saturday round-up edition with behind-the-scenes content. Becoming a member costs less than $2 a week and helps support the ongoing production of The Current’s newsletters and in-depth journalism. Become a member here.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

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