The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) will lower its activation level from Level 2 to Level 1 as of this weekend and begin to focus on long-term recovery and assistance for Johnsons Landing residents and others affected by flooding, sloughs or landslides, the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) announced Thursday. While the RDCK will remain […]

Finally, some good news for a region beseiged by calamitous weather events – the province’s Disaster Financial Assistance Program has designated overland flooding from June 3 to 12 and June 22 to July 2 as “qualifying events”, meaning home owners and small business owners may qualify for between $1,000 and $300,000 in relief funding to […]

On July 25, Zellstoff Celgar Limited Partnership was sentenced in B.C. Provincial court for depositing acutely lethal effluent into the Columbia River, and for other offences under the Environmental Management Act. The sentencing is the result of a conviction on February 16, 2012, following an eight-day trial. Zellstoff Celgar Limited Partnership was fined a total of […]

The body of a third victim has been recovered from the site of the Johnsons Landing mudslide, the BC Coroners Service has confirmed. The body of Rachel Webber, 17, was recovered by searchers at about 6 p.m. on July 25, the first day of the resumption of recovery efforts. Webber was located near the front […]

The Regional District of Central Kootenay is lifting the state of emergency for the area surrounding the HB Mine Dam site near Salmo. “Right now the situtation has stabilized . . . we’ve been able to shore up the one side of the dam,” said Francis Mika of the RDCK Emergency Operations Centre. Maika said […]

The School Works Program pilot, which began its successful run in February, is being offered again this fall to Basin-based businesses and organizations. School Works provides an $8/hour wage subsidy to encourage small businesses and non-profit, First Nation and public sector organizations in the Basin to provide part-time employment for full-time high school and post-secondary […]

The leadership of the First Nations Summit is concerned with the approach laid out yesterday by BC on heavy oil pipelines in British Columbia. “Yesterday’s announcement clearly shows the Provincial Government is on the wrong track and does not fully understand the level of opposition or the reasons for opposition to both the...

The BC Coroners Service announced today that it will resume the search for only one of two bodies believed to be trapped under five to 10 metres of debris from a mudslide on July 12 in Johnsons Landing. “Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe says that searchers, with the help of heavy excavation machinery, will spend two […]

The budget implementation act (Bill C-38), all 400 pages of it, was the latest in a long string of legislative initiatives to have debate limited by time allocation.  Like too many other bills that parliament has been forced to fast-track, C-38 was bloated, omnibus and strayed in too many directions.  New Democrats demanded...

Have you developed a  new or innovative product or service?  Implemented an innovative process or system?  Turned your idea into a new venture? Tell us all about it in your nomination for the Spirit of Innovation Awards. Join KAST in celebrating Regional Heroes of Innovation by nominating yourself, your company, or another,...