WEDNESDAY
$1.25
inc. H.S.T.
February 8, 2012
A division of
Vol. 27 No. 11
COMOX VALLEY RECORD Your community. Your newspaper. www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
T BACK SHE FOUGHT
Campie is the best book Paula Wild has read in a while. ■ 11
CRASHED ICE
When the going got fast, Kyle Croxall got going faster. After struggling through the early rounds of the second race in the 2012 Red Bull Crashed Ice series in Valkenburg, The Netherlands on Saturday, the 19 Wing Comox firefighter put it all together in the final heat to win his second straight race. Croxall, the runner-up in 2011, widened his lead at the top of the 2012 world championship standings with a spectacular come-from-behind victory.
... Complete story on ■ 23
FINDER ■ Weather
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■ Arts
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■ Sports
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■ Classified
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■ Editorial
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■ Opinion
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WAYNE STECK WAS using the basement of “dream home” as a home office until it flooded twice.
Couple frustrated, fearful about flooding Scott Stanfield Record Staff
Wayne and Wanda Steck figured they had moved for the last time when they bought an oceanside house at 1768 Astra Rd. near Kin Beach Park in 1998. They thought wrong. Things were fine until the basement flooded in 2009 and again on Christmas Eve 2010. On the second occurrence, about seven inches of water destroyed flooring, appliances, furniture, and everything inside two offices and Wanda’s craft room. The basement is still gutted to the studs. “This is supposed to be our retirement home,” said the semiretired Wayne who was running a home-based business from the
basement. The situation has especially stressed Wanda, who suffers migraine headaches. The couple’s insurance company will not settle until the water problem is rectified. They have taken out a new policy with another company but could not obtain water coverage. The Stecks plan to eventually sell their devalued house. “Without insurance you’re always looking over your shoulder,” said Wayne, who stacked sandbags at his back door when the flood occurred. The bags are still there. The water appears to have originated across the street at the bottom of a hill below Kincora Ridge Estates. Emcon Ser-
vices, contractor for the Ministry of Transportation, had installed a culvert extending from the bottom of the development underneath Astra Road to a spot near the front of Steck’s property. “That didn’t work because it started flooding again, so they ran another culvert towards the ocean,” he said. “They stopped before the ocean because they said the Department of Fisheries would not allow them to run that water as a positive outlet into the ocean.” The water worked its way into the basement, said Steck, who has spoken numerous times with the Transportation Ministry and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). He said the latter claims ignorance about the culvert.
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To complicate matters, the regional district has no formal involvement with storm water management. “Everyone’s passing the buck,” Steck said. Others in the vicinity have flooded in recent years. Ken McEachnie, who lives on the other side of Astra Road, was also bailing water from his basement in the fall of 2009 and at Christmas, 2010. He said his property had not flooded before construction at Kincora, which sits across the road from CFB Comox. Kip Keylock of Ocean Estates Developments said flooding had occurred before the Kincora property was developed, due in part ... see LAWYERS ■ 2
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