Argo mistake wipes out resident’s hedges, rosebushes

An inadvertent miscalculation by an Argo Road Maintenance employee has robbed an Oliver area family of its outdoor privacy.

Fiona Munro said that on the morning of March 13, her daughter—also named Fiona—was outside raking leaves, when a large Argo excavator came down their road, followed by a company truck.

"The next thing she knew, the men told her to go inside the house because there was going to be stuff flying around," recounted Munro, who lives on Road 6. "I came through to the kitchen when I heard a commotion outside, and when I went to the door I could see they were just chopping down our hedge and our trees were flying everywhere, along with bits of our bushes and branches. It was just awful."

When she and her son Aaron tried to stop the men because they were on Munro property, she said they were told the men were just doing their job.

When the dust and debris had settled, Munro had lost four large trees and a good portion of her mature flowering hedge, while her rose bush has been cut down to near ground level.

Munro called the Argo manager in Oliver, and thus began a negotiation process that is still not completely settled.

From an initial disclaimer of any wrongdoing on their part, Argo has since accepted that the fault was theirs. The excavator had actually churned through nine-and-a half feet of Munro property that morning.

"We were on that road as part of our regular maintenance program," Argo’s general manager Sandy Paulson told the Chronicle on Friday. "It was a mistake. The operator at the time assumed the fence line (he saw) was at the property line and assumed the bushes and trees were on the right-of-way.

"So we are working with the Munros to restore the brush and a couple of rose bushes and a part of the hedge. We have a meeting with them at 8 a.m. on Monday to review the damages and we are working with them to make the remediation required."

That meeting was less than satisfactory to the Munros. She said they were cleaning up the mess about 7 a.m., and a tree consultant hired by Argo came out to the property to check the damages, but he wouldn’t answer her questions in any detail because he had been hired by the company. So she doesn’t know if or when they will replace the trees, and she said the five replacement pieces of the hedge they did plant today are shorter than the ones she was promised.

"It is going to take years for them to fill in and it was the hedge, trees and rose bush that afforded us privacy from the road," Munro lamented.

Argo could not be reached for further comment as to when the work would be completed.

Resident still pushing for needle containers in parks

It’s been a long four years for Randy Asling, but he’s finally starting to feel like he’s getting through to the authorities on the importance of needle disposal containers in Oliver’s parks.

"I feel like I’ve been ignored, big time," Asling said. "I’m not doing this to be a hero. I’m doing this because it needs to be done."

He’s hopeful that recent meetings with Interior Health and a possible future meeting with the town council might help with his cause – but it’s been a long time and a lot of work trying to get through. Over the years, he has approached one authority and then another, trying to find someone who will listen.

In 2001, Asling was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. He traced the cause back to 1994, when he was working as a garbage collector contracted by the town. He was pushing plastic shopping bags into the garbage can at Lion’s Park, when he was stabbed by a needle that was in one of the bags.

"I grabbed a handful and that’s when the needle went into my thumb," he said.

Since he was diagnosed, Asling has been fighting to have needle disposal containers set up at the parks. He admits users may not dispose of the needles in the containers, but he thinks it might help. It will also give the public a place to put a needle, should they find one carelessly discarded.

"What about a mother who comes into the park, sees (the needle) and puts it into the garbage?" he said. An unprotected needle in the garbage is dangerous, and he wants to see plastic containers set up.

The previous mayor, Linda Larson, said the problem wasn’t significant enough in the town to warrant the containers. Over the last seven years there have only been about 10 needles found in Oliver, said Interior Health.

But that’s still too many for Asling, and he is determined not to let the issue drop. But he’s been pin-balled between one authority and another, and he’s getting frustrated.

A couple of weeks ago, Asling requested to be a delegation at a council meeting, and until last week, Asling thought he was being denied that request.

Corporate officer Alleson Mandziuk assures that is not the case. When Asling spoke with her, she researched the situation, and saw the previous council had dealt with the issue.

"He’s expressed concern, he’s requested to speak to the town. Previously the town has suggested this is in the purview of the Health Authority," Mandziuk said. "He was advised at that time (when he first approached the town) … it’s not within the mandate of the local government but within the ministry of health, and the town wasn’t going to be taking any further action."

There was also a meeting already scheduled with the public health nurse with whom Asling has been working for four years.

"I have suggested at this time, it is not appropriate (to speak to council) … I’ve asked him to get in touch with me after that meeting (with Interior Health)," Mandziuk said. "He will be given an opportunity to speak but we are waiting for the come back from the health authority."

Mayor Ron Hovanes said they won’t deny Asling the chance to speak.

"I think it warrants a discussion with council," he said. "The thought was if Randy wants to bring it forward, sure, he could bring it forward, to Committee (of the Whole) perhaps."

Megan Klammer is the public health nurse who has been working on the issue over the years. Last May, she started a community safety survey, to find out what the town’s residents consider the most pressing issues.

"What we are doing here is we are working with Randy to establish the community’s perception of safety concerns," Klammer said. The survey will be circulated until this May, then the results will be studied. If the community agrees needle disposal is an issue, they will consider it.

"I believe we are going to look at it as an option, absolutely," she said. "We are taking this very seriously."

Bird control program over; more funding needed

Harry Bray and his granddaughter Megan Chase have starling control down to a science.

Every other morning Bray drives his truck laden with pails of water, culled apples and crushed corn into the feedlot south of Oliver and stops at each of his 12 conventional bird traps and one 12 by 20-foot remote-controlled drop trap.

While there, he and Chase enter the large wood-and-wire screen-structure, fill the water bowls, throw in a generous supply of apples and corn, and count the number of birds contained inside the specially designed trap.

If there are more than five, Chase shoos the excess birds toward her grandfather, who corners them against the screen with a tennis racket, drops them into a covered container for humane disposal via carbon dioxide later, and leaves the remaining birds to act as a draw for other starlings. Then the two move on to the next trap and repeat the process.

Any other bird species that enter the trap by mistake are released.

On Monday, there were no starlings in the drop trap. One day last week, he caught 113.

The procedure is all part of the starling control pilot program that has been in operation in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys for the past three years.

In that time, Bray has caught over 40,000 starlings in his Oliver area traps. Throughout the program region that now stretches as far north as Salmon Arm, more than 100,000 of these birds have been caught, euthanized and sold to raptor rearing and owl rehabilitation facilities.

Bray has never met a starling he didn’t consider a nuisance. While many people simply consider them a noisy bird, Bray prefers the derogatory nickname being bandied about among the various growers—rats with wings.

Whatever your viewpoint, starlings are a foreign species introduced to North America more than 100 years ago. Abundant in numbers with a taste for a variety of food sources, these birds cause extensive damage to crops, spread disease in livestock and fiercely compete with native bird species for existing nesting cavities.

They are a bane to orchardists, grape growers, berry farmers, corn farmers, cattlemen and feedlot operators. Travelling in large flocks that can contain hundreds of birds at a time, these feathered marauders daily descend on their chosen buffets and can demolish a crop in less time than it takes to sing a song of sixpence.

The program, which has been funded by the BC Fruit Growers Association, Okanagan Cherry Growers Association, BC Independent Grape Growers Association, BC Milk Producers Association, Cooperative Cherry Lines, Vincor and the Agriculture Environment Partnership Initiative, ends on March 31 this year.

And that is unfortunate say growers, because it won’t take much for the starling population to rebound if the culls are discontinued due to lack of funding. The drop in starling numbers over the last three years has led to a reduced usage of propane cannons in orchards and vineyards, a plus for both growers and non-agricultural residents alike.

"The valley has a lot to gain by controlling these birds. We have to have a continuous, coordinated starling control program and one that is valley-wide," said cherry orchardist Greg Norton. "We have to learn more about their habits and patterns, because these birds are clever."

And, said Norton, as their food source expands with the increase in vineyards, this species will boost its population numbers accordingly.

"When there’s lots of groceries around they multiply, because they have the ability to respond to their food supply."

And cherry growers will suffer as a result too. They have the first crops in the spring and the starlings coming off a winter diet of dried fruit and crushed corn, eagerly ply the cherry trees at harvest time, looking for fresh fruit. In fall it is the grape growers who suffer, as the birds bulk up for the winter.

A meeting was held last week to lay the groundwork for developing a long-term funding strategy. BC Fruit Growers’ Association president, Joe Sardinha, said the will is there to continue the program, now they need to find funding partners for it, ones who realize this will have to be an ongoing maintenance program.

To that end they have asked Keremeos trapper, Robert Quaedvlieg, who has led the program from the beginning, to draw up a plan that can be applied to the whole region. This will include numbers of traps and trappers needed to keep the starling population under control.

When that is complete, Sardinha said they would approach the three regional districts, the various commodity groups, as well as other possible partners such as naturalists, to become funding partners. He would also like to see the annual bird count participants assist them in tracking existing starling flocks, because the more the programmers know, the more successful the program will be.

Trappers like Bray and Quadevlieg have learned a lot about starling behaviour already. They know their feeding range can extend for 80 km; that their thoughts turn to nesting at the end of March; that each female hatches 10 fledglings a year in two broods; that starlings can live up to 20 years and are very territorial; and that they don’t re-flock until after the second brood leaves the nest in late June, so there is no point resuming trapping until then.

They have also learned that deer are quite partial to the apples left in the traps, and some of these creatures have been quite determined in their efforts to nab an apple or two, on their travels.

The organizers want the professional traps to be properly installed at known gathering places like the feedlot—not individual orchards or vineyards—and maintained by experienced trappers like Bray and Quaedvlieg.

Norton said the public needs to be informed about starlings’ nesting habits too, especially with respect to residential and commercial buildings that attract nesting pairs. He would like them to remove nests before the eggs hatch.

Area C director, Allan Patton, who was instrumental in getting the starling control program off the ground, said he would be receptive to the funding idea at the RDOS level, but it would have to be subject to funding from the other regional districts.

Starlings be gone

Like rabbits to Australia, starlings were introduced to North America. In 1890, 100 birds where released in New York’s Central Park by a fancier who wanted to establish in the New World all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare. They were very successful in their new home and now range over all but the very far north of our continent. They are very aggressive and have a fondness for much of what humans grow for their own use. Travelling in large flocks, they can do huge economic damage to our grape and tree fruit industry.

The control program, started in the Similkameen, has been very successful in reducing local populations. Based on traps of an Australian design – they got more than rabbits from Europe – the program uses food, water and the bird’s natural gregariousness to lure them to their humane doom. Anyone with grapes or tree fruits can testify to the effectiveness of the program.

Money runs out this month and we would be foolish to let the bird’s numbers rebuild. This a program with very wide benefits to the community. It needs to be properly funded.