THE WEDNESDAY
2010 WINNER
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TRI-CITY NEWS Off to see The Wizard
Soccer, hockey & more
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SEE SPORTS, PAGE A27
The final part in The Tri-City News’ 8-month series...
If food is available, bears may stay up By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Cost soars by $1.9 million for Belcarra potable water project
T
see CATCHING BEARS, BEARS, page A14
INSIDE
Tom Fletcher/A10 Letters/A11 A Good Read/A19 RenoNation/B section
A high price for a drink
ALSO Hibernation info and a conservation officer speaks out: page A14
Ready to sleep?
By Janis Warren THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Belcarra homeowners will be charged an extra $250 a year for drinking water after the cost of a water project skyrocketed. Angry residents got the news from the village council last week, just days after Mayor Ralph Drew and the four councillors were acclaimed for another three-year term. The potable water project to tap into Metro Vancouver’s water supply in the district of North Vancouver via an underwater pipe came in $1.9 million higher than the 2006 estimate, residents were told at a meeting Oct. 19 — five days after the deadline for candidates to file nomination papers in the civic election. Now, instead of an annual $900 estimate per parcel for 25 years, homeowners will face an approximate $1,154 levy per year; in the spring, they can opt to pay the levy either in a lump sum or have the cost spread out on their property tax bills until 2037. On Monday, council voted to press forward with a bylaw to accept the $1.9-million hike, bringing the project total to more than $9 million. (In 2005, two-thirds of the village’s electorate approved $3 million in borrowing in a non-binding referendum.) And Mayor Drew blamed delays caused by other levels of government for the increase. see DELAYS BEHIND HIKE, HIKE, page A4
J.M. DOUGLAS PHOTOGRAPHY
he recent spate of cold weather in the region is sending bears out of town for the winter but that doesn’t mean people should start getting complacent about their garbage, officials say. If garbage becomes easy to get, bears will come back — and some may decide not to hibernate at all. “If there’s a food source, they’re not really going to hibernate,” said James Kelly, a provincial conservation officer who works in the Fraser Zone, which includes the Tri-Cities. Kelly said cold weather doesn’t chase the bears into hibernation — it’s the lack of food that sets their biological clocks to sleep. That means if food is still around when the cold weather hits, they’ll stay awake. The 2011 bear season has been one of the busiest in recent years in the Tri-Cities, with 17 bears destroyed for garbage habituation or because of car accidents or other injuries. At least one bear was relocated and six bear cubs were sent to Critter Care in Langley in the hopes they can be rehabilitated and released back into the wild next spring. Kelly, a Coquitlam resident who was transferred here this year, spent much of his summer following up on bear complaints, although his job also entails enforcing hunting rules and environmental regulations. He said bears were active in the Tri-City region this year because the berry crop was poor. “[Younger bears] kind of get pushed down the mountain and end up following the greenbelts, where they get into garbage. Then they’re hooked and nothing’s going to get them off garbage.”
OCT. 26, 2011
Port Coquitlam nature photographer Jamie Douglas snapped this photo in the spring of a bear cub nibbling on grass. For more information on bear issues, go to www.bearaware.bc.ca, where you can also find a link to Douglas’ site, jamiedouglas.500px.com.
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FOR A VIDEO FEATURING INFORMATION ON BEARS AND THE FOOD THAT ATTRACTS THEM, GO TO www.tricitynews.com.
THAT ’70S FUNDRAISER The 14th A Class Act is set for Saturday in Coquitlam See article on page A19