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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2012 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
PROVINCIAL SOLIDARITY Employees of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure joined a B.C.-wide strike among members of the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union on Wednesday. Nicola Valley Teachers’ Union President Loch Eddy joined the petition, saying all government employees are in the battle together. Workers said they haven’t received a raise in three years, equating to a five per cent decrease when factoring inflation. Phillip Woolgar/Herald
Ministry says locked Pennask Lake Road is public By Phillip Woolgar
the Ministry responded on Aug. 21 saying the road is public. But the Ministry still hasn’t recognized the status of a locked stretch of the road, said Rick McGowan, who has spearheaded the fight for public access since the mid-90s when the Douglas Lake Cattle Co. blocked access to Stoney Lake Road. “The portion of the road that they locked, they’ve dug up and planted a hay field all over it, and they’ve dumped logs in a few spots
THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
The fight for access to fishing waters surrounded by the Douglas Lake Ranch may be easier for a Merritt group now that the Ministry of Transportation deemed Pennask Lake Road public. The Ministry has been tightlipped and seemingly unsure about the road’s designation, but after the Merritt Herald filed a Freedom of Information Request on July 31,
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to stop us from going in there,” said McGowan, a retired provincial highways engineer who worked on the road. “There is more information to say that this portion is a public road than any [darn] road in British Columbia.” He said the Ministry is claiming Stoney Lake Road doesn’t exist so that they don’t have to challenge the many corporations throughout the province that are blocking public access to Crown roads. “This is just one of many
Crown roads that the public is blocked out of,” McGowan said. “We just took this road as an example because we have so much information to say that it is public.” The debate has escalated since local and national media watchdogs and the public have approached the Ministry with pointed questions over the last several months. According to the Ministry, Stoney Lake Road, which is the source of much confusion, has
since been replaced by Pennask Lake Road, the Ministry stated after reviewing documents dating back to the 1880s. “Ministry staff and legal counsel from the attorney general have concluded a review of records on Stoney Lake Road ... that determined no substantive legal grounds to pursue public road status,” the spokesperson said in an email, noting Stoney was replaced by
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