Wednesday - April 24, 2024 - How working from home is working

🌧 High 13C

Good morning!

I would say that I cursed the Canucks with yesterday’s introduction but, of course, the hockey team was obviously doomed long before I wrote yesterday about how I had once again emotionally committed to the team. Because sure enough, the team’s irreplaceable goalie is hurt to some unknown degree. At least the hope didn’t last as long as it usually does.

– Tyler

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

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NEWS

How’s that working-from-home thing going?

The ability to work from home is changing the Fraser Valley.

Remote work has enabled people who work in Vancouver to take advantage of the valley’s cheaper housing prices while skipping commutes that once deterred many from living west of Surrey. Census data collected and distributed by the City of Chilliwack last week shows that the number of residents working from home dramatically increased.

That’s not only true in affluent urban neighbourhoods. The spike in remote work has been most seen in outlying rural areas; by 2021, one in five of all Yarrow and Ryder Lake residents reported working from home. In Rosedale, 30% of residents worked remotely. In most other Chilliwack neighbourhoods, between 10% and 15% of residents worked out of their own homes. Data from other Fraser Valley areas isn’t readily available, but anecdotes abound about city-folk fleeing west and spending their workday in sweatpants.

The Chilliwack statistics are from 2021, when the COVID pandemic was still at its peak. But other data shows that in the years since, many people (like the journalists at The Current) have continued to work remotely. That has implications on how communities plan for transit and transportation, how homes get built, and how commercial centres develop.

• Today, we’re sharing a new survey by EKOS Research Associates that sought to understand the ways in which working-from-home has shifted since the pandemic.

Related

Need to Know

📃 Mission and Chilliwack have been added to the BC government’s list of municipalities expected to build more homes, more quickly [Mission Record]

🚧 A developer hopes to construct a six-storey apartment building at the former site of a Langley nightclub [Langley Advance Times]

👉 BC’s Ombudsperson says the province should be embarrassed for how it handles youth in correctional facilities [Global]

🚨 A young woman was killed in a collision between two dirtbikes in the Chilliwack River Valley on Saturday [Chilliwack Progress]

🔎 Police want help finding a missing 27-year-old Abbotsford man [Abbotsford Police/Facebook]

🥛 The BC government has promised $25 million to help expand an Abbotsford milk plan [CTV] / The Current broke the news about the new plant two and a half years ago, when it was aimed at butter production [FVC]

🚓 Two crashes in Chilliwack over the weekend may be linked to impaired driving [Chilliwack Progress]

🌲 The forest industry says it can help solve BC’s wildfire problems, but experts say that to do so, it would need to cut down fewer trees [North Shore News]

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The Agenda

Agassiz poop ends up as fertilizer on Cariboo farms

When a toilet is flushed in Agassiz, it—”it” being your poop—ends up on a faraway farm.

Like all treatment plants, the Agassiz Wastewater Treatment Plant handles the area’s effluent by separating the liquids from the solids. The water is cleaned, and heads to the river. Solids, on the other hand, go through an additional “digestion” process. Harrison Hot Springs, which has its own wastewater treatment plant, trucks its solids over to Agassiz for digestion. Combined, the two systems produce around 800 bulk tons of material each year.

A report by District of Kent staff shows where 2023’s waste ended up. Over the last year, the solids were trucked to two farms in the Interior and used to fertilize the land. OK Ranch near Clinton took the bulk of Agassiz’s waste, while Pinnacle Farm in Quesnel took a smaller portion. Both farms stored the waste in stockpile areas before applying it to either pasture or animal feed crops in the fall.

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🗓 Things to do

Comedy: The Chilliwack Players Guild will perform comedy "Drinking Habits" at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre between April 25 and May 5. Evening performances start at 7:30pm, Sunday matinees at 5pm. Tickets online.

Talent show: Mountainview Brewing Co. in Hope is hosting a talent show including performances by a "magician, comedian, punk band and aerial pole artist." Entry is free. Details online.

Arts fest: UFV's School of Creative Arts is hosting its annual Interpret creative and performing arts festival from 4 to 9pm at the university's Abbotsford campus. Tickets for free online.

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Catch up

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