500-YEAR-OLD TREES TO BE FELLED
. Van fir giants get no reprieve

AN ELEVENTH hour meeting held by West Vancouver
District Council Tuesday night to discuss the removal of
several 500-year-old Douglas fir trees that are standing in a
Caulfeild Plateau area slated for road and lot development
failed to result in reprieve for the fir giants.

The larger of the trees measures
6.68 feet in diameter at breast
height and is 165 feet tall. The se-
cond smailer tree, of similar
height, is 6.37 feet in diameter at
breast height.

The largest of the trees stands
near the centreline of the
Meadfeild Road extension, which
will service the new Sannis sub-
division in West Vancouver.

In a March 6 report from West
Vancouver director of operations
Barry Lambert to municipal man-
ager Terry Lester, Lambert stated
that relocating or splitting the road
around the tree are not feasible
options.

. The property owner offered to

delay cutting down the tree on the
condition that the district compen-
sate delay or design-change costs.
Redesign of the road would result
in up to $10,000 for additional
blasting. Council also balked at the
perceived liability risk posed by the
tree if it were to be left standing
in a developed area.

A report to the district in Feb-
cuary by forest resource consul-
tants Reid, Collins And Associates
determined the tree to be an unac-
ceptable risk to future residents
and improvements. Lambert
reported the second tree, not di-
rectly in the path of the road,

NEW’, photo ‘erry Paters

Healthy heart

FIVE-YEAR-OLD Stephanie MacIntosh blows up a Heart Fund balloon at a special
breakfast held recently at Lynn Valley Parent Participation Preschool. Children from
the preschool, along with their parents, ate a nutritious breakfast at the school while
learning about keeping a healthy heart from a Heart Fund representative. Money raised
from the breakfast was donated to the Heart Fund.

DEATH OF HIKER

Inquest recommendations made

Fyrom page 1

Peterson said nothing could be
done for the stricken climber until
equipment arrived to support
McGregor’s climbing partners at
the scene of the mishap.

After witnessing McGregor tak-
ing the fall, climbing partner Dar-
rell Freeman rappelled into the
crevasse. He failed to reach or
make voice contact with
McGregor.

By I p.m., NSRT team leader
Roger Bean managed to reach
McGregor, who was unconscious
but still breathing. A medical doc-
tor and NSRT member Richard
Foster, a paramedic with the North
Vancouver unit of the B.C. Am-
bulance Service, assisted.

Included among 11 inquest re-
commendations made were calls

for:

ean acceleration of the province’s
plan to establish helicopter
medivac facilities;

*the provision of appropriate
rescue equipment at strategic
mountain locations;

ethe registration, with local
authorities, of training groups
operating outside of their jurisdic-
tion;

*reassessment of Emergency
Health Services response protocol
to life-threatening situations:

e442 Squadron Comox notifica-
tion for all rescues exceeding im-
mediately available resources;
eEmergency Health Services rec-
ognition and listing of all non-
medical skills held by personnel
that relate to rescue;

eensuring that all agencies with
emergency dispatch personne}
adequately train all new personnel
who must receive and = dispatch

resources.

Said Peterson: ‘‘Certainly there
is an area of unknown jurisdiction
in terms of rescue in the wilderness
parts of B.C. It’s an area that all
of us have recognized would
benefit from clarification, We
would very much like to be
meeting with B.C. Ambulance
Service and the Provincial
Emergency Program to try and
determine whose jurisdiction this
type of emergency work is. It just
needs discussing.**

The inquest jury commended the
on-site actions of the NSRT.

McGregor was the team’s most
experienced climber and trained his
fellow volunteers. He also worked
as a climbing instructor for the
Federation of Mountain Clubs of
B.C. and was a safety committee
member with Outward Bound,

3. Friday, Murch 9, 1990 - North Shore News

should be removed if it is deter-
mined by a registered professional
forester to be hazardous.

Said) Lambert in) the report,
“Obviously there is no reason to
assume that a tree that has lasted
500 vears will last for any signifi-
cant additional time.”

Council moved to receive
Lambert's report) and instruct
district staff to prepare an inven-
.ory of old-growth trees standing
in West Vancouver.

Said Jill Mingay, a 5200-block
Keith Road resident living adjacent
to the new subdivision, ‘‘Our big-
gest concern is that when all of the

trees go, the water run-off will be
extreme. We have a lot of safety
and esthetic concerns which
haven't been met. Short of expen-
sive legal bills, there's nothing we
can do. We'll just have to be really
watchful ubout what greenery is
left. It’s too late to save those big
trees — I think it’s criminal.’

Mingay said the developer could
have left the trees standing by al-
locating space around them when
the Sunnis subdivision was initially
designed. But she said, **She’s put
the green belt where it has suited
her without any regard for the
trees."”

Drivers threaten

bus stop

boycott

in W. Vancouver

A BUSDRIVERS’ threatened boycott of the Park Royal
bus-stop at the southwest corner of Marine Drive and
Taylor Way got a chilly reception from West Vancouver
District Council Monday night.

Members of the Independent
Canadian Transit Union (f[CTU),
which represents all Lower
Mainfand-area B.C. Transit bus
drivers except those who drive for
West Vancouver’s Blue Bus
system, requested that council have
the stop moved further west by
March 19.

The move, according to the
union, would allow buses to avoid
having to make the rapid lane
change from curbside to the North
Vancouver-bound lane they must
make now because of the current
bus-stop location.

“We also wish to advise you
that we no longer can allow this
unsafe manoeuvre to continue and
unfortunately must inform you
that effective March 19, 1990 we
will instruct. our operators to
hwvnass this stop,’’ submitted Gor-
don Elgar of the ICTU’s North
Vancotlver safety committee.

Elgar maintained that the lane
change at that spot was not only
“downright dangerous,’’ but that
avoiding it would provide better
service to the public.

“One advantage is the elimina-
tion of buses being delayed due to
traffic congestion waiting to cross
Lions Gate Bridge, a not uncom-
mon delay of four to eight minutes
which creates a negative impact on
service connections at Lonsdale
Quay and further east as far as the
Phibbs Exchange,”’ said Elgar.

The safety committee maintains
that a missed connection resulting
from delays at Park Royal can
create a waiting time on some
routes of 30 to 60 minutes.

West Vancouver municipal
manager Terry Lester said he was
not aware of any actual accidents
that had been caused at that loca-
tion as a result of the rapid lane
changes.

“Our Blue Bus drivers (which
are represented by the
Amalgamated Transit Union) have
had no difficulty making that

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manoeuvre over the years. We
might suggest that they take over
that part of the route for you,”
Mayor Don Lanskail quipped.

Ald. Alex Brokenshire suggested

ce
The mixing of
safety and labor
relations is a bad mix
... Settle this with
your employer.”’

— West Vancouver
Ald. Alex Brokenshire

a

that the transit union’s quarrel was
with its union and not with the
municipality of West Vancouver.
“The mixing of safety and labor
relations is a bad mix...settle this
with your employer. They have a

responsibility to settle it with
you,” Brokenshire added.

Ald. Carol Ann Reynolds said
that the union’s offering the
March 19 ultimatum was ‘‘an un-
fortunate approach.”’

Mayor Lanskail agreed.

“I've spent 29 years in labor
relations and I’ve been threatened
by experts,’’ he warned.

B.C. Transit, while acknowledg-
ing the problem at that bus stop,
and the potential hazard of buses
having to make the lane change in
the intersection, recommended
retention of that route until physi-
cal changes are made to the Park
Royal Shopping Centre in the
future.

Assistant transit planner Craig
Van Alstyne also recommended
consideration of a bus-activated
signal that would allow buses to
cross the intersection unimpeded.

Friday and Saturday, rain.
Highs near 9°C.

Second Class Registration Number 3885