Dear Editor,
The Friends of the Nicola Valley, now almost a 1,000 strong (and supported by a local petition of some 3,000), has been struggling hard for many months now to safeguard our local environment. Our visible protests along Highway 8 have rallied a great deal of community support and awareness on this issue.
So many have expressed their joy at working together (First Nations and non-native peoples of the valley) to bring about change — to work toward a future that will ensure health and security for everyone living in this wonderful valley.
What is our goal? Simply this — to end all importation of sewage sludge into our valley, and to immediately have the facility on Sunshine Valley Road dismantled, and the sludge piles taken back to the communities that trucked it here. This is a modest request. This is a reasonable request. Mostly, however, it is a fair request.
Other communities must look after their own sewage sludge. We will not be the dumping ground for the concentrated end-product of other people’s water treatment facilities.
This area is known for its beauty and its healthy environment. Our tourism economy will only suffer as we get buried deeper and deeper by other cities’ waste.
But more than this is jeopardized by this practice. First Nations elders have spoken of how they are gravely concerned about how traditional hunting and gathering in the forests have been disrupted. They have spoken about not being able to drink from the streams they once did or eat the herbs and berries they once collected.
Together, as Friends of the Nicola Valley, we are going to continue this battle to end this insidious practice. Many of us have never protested before, never carried a sign before, never written to our MLAs before, but this issue has galvanized us to stand firm and fight for what is right.
Rest assured, we will not stop this protest until our goals are addressed and our valley is safe.
Don Vincent
Spokesperson, Friends of the Nicola Valley
Merritt
