Quick drive through Stanley Park to see the wind damage from the recent windstorm.
Prospect point was hit quite hard (5:00) , I'm sure the parking machine was the first thing they fixed.
A lot of trees were knocked down, and you can still see some trees leaning over the roadway.
Global News has launched a mini-telethon fundraiser to help cover the cost of cleaning up storm-damaged Stanley Park.
All week on Global's Early News (5 p.m.) and News Hour (6 p.m.) newscasts, volunteers will take calls from those wishing to donate to the Tree-a-thon for Stanley Park Restoration Fund. Viewers are asked to phone 604-280-6397 or 1-877-330-6397.
jim pattison will match whatever the public donates apparently
Quote:
Jim Pattison, President of the Pattison Broadcast Group which owns and operates PGTV, "The Drive", and "The River", has just announced he will match dollar for dollar, the amount donated by British Columbians to help restore Stanley Park. He says he will donate up to one million dollars to the effort.
Pattison says he pratically grew up in the park which has been nearly flattened by a series of severe storms.
Hot off Pattison’s announcement, Telus announced it would donate $100 thousand dollars to the effort, so Pattison is already on the hook for a hundred grand and the goal of raising $2 million to clean up and do some restoration work is on its way.
Donations over $50 will be issued a tax receipt. Donations can be mailed to the
Vancouver Park Board
c/o Stanley Park Tree Fund
2099 Beach Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6G 1Z4
Cheques should be made payable to Vancouver Park Board
- Stanley Park Tree Fund.
Include your name, phone number and address with your donation.
All donations of $50 or more are tax deductible.
If you wish to dedicate a tree in Stanley Park, the cost is $2,000. Your donation will provide for the planting and preservation of a tree in an area of the park that was most affected. A certificate of recognition will be issued to you or in the name of a loved one. Your donation also will be publicly recognized in Stanley Park. If you are interested in dedicating a tree, please call 604-257-6911.
Stanley Park syndrome grips province
By TomFletcher
Jan 10 2007
BC Views
Health care is so 2006, according to the latest conventional wisdom. The next federal election will be all about “the environment” and what’s (not) being done to combat global warming.
As this is being written, another window-rattling windstorm is making its way across Vancouver Island, so it’s not surprising that atmospheric matters are top of mind this winter.
But the over-the-top reaction to the recent blowdown of trees in Stanley Park shows how fickle and flighty urban public opinion has become. Fund-raising drives have sprung up to restore the Stanley Park trees, because Vancouver can afford to finance Canada’s only precious hand-wringing elected park commissioners, but can’t manage the replacement of 3,000 trees that would eventually sprout on their own anyway.
The Globe and Mail has been running full-page ads touting its donation of 10 trees to the restoration effort, raising the awkward possibility that more than 10 trees may be sacrificed to deliver their self-congratulatory message.
Meanwhile, a couple of kilometers around Point Grey at Pacific Spirit Regional Park, the wind damage is just as bad, but no telethons have sprung up to aid the regional government there. There’s a shortage of nudists to protest at this time of year, but the steep trail down to Wreck Beach must be an awful mess.
And in the Interior, people surrounded by millions of beetle-killed pine trees must have been scratching their heads at the tree hysteria in the big city. As Kamloops This Week put it in a recent editorial, that city’s residents are having to deal with 30,000 dead or dying trees, and Forest Minister Rich Coleman says they’re responsible for trees on their property.
“Meanwhile,” the paper notes, “a few trees are left teetering in West Vancouver following a windstorm and residents in the richest postal code in Canada are afforded helicopter logging, with the province footing the bill. And one wonders why residents of the Interior might feel they truly are beyond Hope.”
As everyone who’s seen Al Gore’s movie keeps assuring me, greenhouse gases are obviously to blame for all this extreme weather. Never mind that the keepers of weather stats say this isn’t the worst on record, just like the 2003 B.C. forest fire season wasn’t the worst. If it feels like the truth, that’s close enough these days.
Is all this concern about the environment genuine? As mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, we’re in for a loud argument this year over two (possibly three) coal-fired power plants proposed in B.C. In China they’re planning hundreds of coal-fired plants, and buying up B.C. coal to feed to them. The plants proposed for Princeton and Tumbler Ridge don’t make a pinch of difference to the planet, and for that matter all of Canada’s emissions are a tiny fraction of the whole picture. It’s developing countries where the big emission increases are going to be coming from.
An inconvenient truth, to borrow Gore’s phrase, is that with health care as with the environment, it’s not bold new laws but day-to-day choices by individuals that matter most for people in B.C.
My thermostat’s been set at 18 degrees for about 20 years now. My last bathroom renovation, more than a decade ago, included not only a water-saving toilet but one of those low-flow shower heads that you have to run around underneath to get wet. My four-cylinder, AirCared vehicle is currently gassed up about once a month.
If you can’t say the same, maybe you should go sit through Gore’s lecture on global warming at the local cinema. I’ll put on a sweater and stay home.
Why not child care?
If we must have another federal election, voters would be better served by a vigorous discussion about child care than grandiose posturing over climate change.
The end of federal subsidies to child care means B.C. rates are going up by $2 a day starting in July, for those who use licensed daycare. Opponents will argue that this is wanton slashing of social programs by the heartless Harper Conservatives, when in fact the switch to the $100-a-month Universal Child Care Benefit represents a major increase in federal spending.
Those parents lucky enough to have licensed daycare will pay only half their federal benefit to cover the increase, leaving them an extra $40 a month to spend on a trip to the museum with the kids, or beer and popcorn.
Fewer children
The change in federal child care policy also reduces the provincial subsidy available for building new daycare spaces. With a strong job market in B.C., and parents getting a monthly federal cheque for each child under six years old, could it possibly be that market demand for licensed daycare will increase enough to make up for the lost subsidy? Or must Quebec-style subsidized state daycare be the goal for all of Canada?
As Mark Steyn points out in his new book, America Alone, now is not an ideal time for Canada or any developed country to launch an expensive new social program. Our birthrate has fallen to below replacement level, which means the expensive social programs we already have are in serious jeopardy.
School enrolment will keep dropping for the next decade. In some rural B.C. districts the schools are already half empty, due to a combination of lower birth rate and migration to urban centres. Daycare space, anyone?
Tom Fletcher is B.C. bureau reporter for Black Press newspapers.
South Surrey drivers got a dump of over one foot of snow as temperatures dropped. Motorists with summer tires were caught off guard creating chaos, getting stuck and clogging most of main arterial routes.
The replacement panel for the tear in the roof of B.C. Place is lifted to the roof. The 150-foot teflon triangle came to B.C. from Mexico.
A snow storm made driving conditions hazardous and stopped traffic on Highway 1 at 264th Street in Langley January 10, 2007.
A recent windstorm downed a tree at Burrard and Cornwall blocking southbound traffic. Parks crews cut and chip the tree to remove the obstruction.
Storm-caused damage in Vancouver, B.C.
The damage on the seawall in Stanley park as a result of windstorms.
Storm-caused damage in Vancouver, BC Tuesday, January 9, 2007. Pictured is a tree down at English Bay.
SEVEN MILLION THANK YOU'S. To all those that have helped, now that the federal government has chipped in 2 million. Thanks to all for the help. The process of rebuilding will be long, but done right. An extensive article in the Courier this week for those that are interested.
namaste, derek
Cost for restoration of Stanley Park rises to $9 million
By Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, January 26, 2007
The pricetag for the restoration of Stanley Park has risen to $9 million, including $3.5 million to rebuild the seawall and stabilize the slopes above the popular perimeter promenade.
The park restoration working group, headed by Stanley District manager Jim Lowden, has produced an itemized preliminary estimate to be presented to city council on Tuesday.
The report identifies funds for the work totalling $8.6 million -- $2 million from the city’s 2006 budget surplus, $2 million from the provincial government, $2 million from the federal government and $2.6 million in public and corporate donations received over the past five weeks.
The seawall and the forests that cover much of the park were badly damaged by hurricane-force winds in the wee hours of Dec.15, 2006. Several storms since then have caused damaged trees to fall. About 3,000 trees were blown down in areas totalling 40 hectares (100 acres) and all the walking trails west of Pipeline Road remain closed and extremely dangerous.
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