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Tiny turtle rules Alfie Lau
staff reporter
Picking a newsmaker or story of the year is usually quite easy.
Slow progress:
Above, the Western painted turtle, an endangered species, halted a multimilliondollar dredging project. Left, some of the dredging equipment at Burnaby Lake. File photos/burnaby now
A politician wins a stunning victory, an athlete triumphs or somebody overcomes all the odds and obstacles to show us, the cynical reporters, that good can triumph over evil. But for 2010, that wasn’t so easy in Burnaby. In a year when so much happened in the Lower Mainland - that little thing called the 2010 Winter Olympics dominated the first two months of the year and the escalating gang violence in the region dominated the last two months - Burnaby always seemed to be a bit player in all of the proceedings. But one story kept on making the news and for that, the Burnaby NOW’s Newsmaker of the Year for 2010 is the Western painted turtle and the dredging project at Burnaby Lake. The year began with the dredging project in limbo as scientists scrambled to figure out where exactly the turtles were. They has to make sure they were out of harm’s way before the dredging started. The city used radar and sonar equipment to
ensure the turtles weren’t in the active dredging zones. It wouldn’t be until March that the dredging project could begin, but in the meantime, the city was paying out thousands of dollars a day for equipment to sit idle by the lake’s edge. Even as scientists concluded their studies and discovered the turtles were steering clear of the dredging areas, Mayor Derek Corrigan weighed in on what he thought about the turtles: “They’re smarter than some scientists I know.” Hazco was contracted to do the dredging on the project that was originally slated to include 360,000 cubic metres of sediment removed. But as the project continued at the pace of 900 cubic metres per day – based on a 16hour day, six days a week – the project was reduced to 185,000 cubic metres, according to a staff report. While those numbers were down, the most important number went up almost $5 million, as the project, originally slated to cost $16 million, is now slated to cost $20.567 million, plus HST. Did the Western painted turtle cost the city more than $5 million? Not by itself, but if it Environment Page 3
Flip through our top headlines of 2010 Good news, bad news and everything in between – it filled our pages in 2010. For a brief step back in time, check out the year that was.
January
After 10 weeks on the picket line, HandyDART workers got back on the job after agreeing to a deal with their employer, MVT Canadian Bus. The 500 workers from the Amalgamated Transit Union, local 1724, had been on strike since Oct.
26, 2009.
◆ Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian takes issue with Parliament being prorogued until March 3. The legislative session was supposed to begin on Jan. 25, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament. “He (Harper) certainly is taking
the entitlement around the use of government for his own personal means to a new level and that is deplorable,” said Julian. ◆ A new industrial workshop in the Burnaby Youth Custody Services facility opened, giving youth in prison hands-on skills training opportunities.
Property assessments were mailed out and in Burnaby, property values held steady and even grew marginally, from $50.55 billion in 2009 to $51.55 billion in 2010. ◆ Gloo Studios Inc., a full-service film production company, opened up shop at Hastings and Boundary. ◆ A man’s body was found in a burning January Page 8
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