Web site articles changed; removed

The author of the Oliver News Weekly web site has removed or changed a series of offending articles, after being threatened with criminal charges by the RCMP.

Claiming to be "The news you won’t see in the Chronicle," the site appeared on-line last summer. A series of articles written on the site poked fun at elected officials, town staff, and local media – and may have crossed the line from political satire to criminal defamation, said RCMP. Some of the stories included those of the mayor and staff taking part in sadistic circumcision rituals, financial mismanagement, and sexual deviancy.

RCMP Sgt. Kevin Schur said some of the items may fall into a section of the criminal code of defamatory libel, and that they would consider charges if the site continued to operate as it was.

"He was very reasonable, actually," said Schur about his visit to speak to the person behind the site. He said he was told that the site would continue to operate, but the author would be more cautious of the line in order to prevent possible charges. Schur said the file would be closed if the material was removed immediately.

"I am completely satisfied he understands everything I needed to say," said Schur, who was promised the site’s offending material would be removed within 24 hours of his visit on April 11.

"It’s one thing to be funny, another to be personal."

Schur said charges could be laid if published information injures the reputation of any person, conveys hatred, ridicule, or is designed to insult another.

The site still has some of the same articles on-line, but names have been blocked out or removed. Other articles have been taken off altogether.

The registrant of the Oliver News Weekly Site is Park Rill Inn, which is legally registered to Monica Hoover. The administrative contact is Michael Hoover, believed to be her son. Offensive emails went out from the Park Rill email address.

Area C director Allan Patton said Monica Hoover has resigned from the Area Planning Commission, as per his request.

SPCA seizes cattle, sheep, donkey from farm

The SPCA seized approximately 100 head of cattle, some sheep and a donkey from the Harfman property on Sawmill Road last weekend.

"It was an obvious case of animal cruelty," said RCMP Cnst. Clint Kronebusch Monday. "They found quite a few dead livestock." Others had to be put down because they were too sick, he said.

Several sources had reported the situation to the SPCA. The property borders the walking trail along the river channel. One person said he started to be concerned in February this year.

"There never seemed to be any feed out for the animals," he said. "They were emaciated."

Over the months, he and others saw animals dying, and began calling the SPCA.

"Having seen a dead calf, then three dead cows in the space of four months, I started to get concerned. They were clearly not being looked after."

There were also health concerns, as the dead animals were near the river, and may not have been cleared away in a timely manner.

Kronebusch said the SPCA does the work involved, and the RCMP were there to ensure there was no interference. All the animals were seized over the weekend.

"They came in a truck and they made about five trips, and removed the animals from the farm," he said, adding charges will be laid. By press time, no names were released about who owned the animals or what charges they might face.

Fruit flies’ lives in jeopardy

Cherry fruit flies are living on borrowed time in the Okanagan.

A new weapon in the agricultural arsenal against this costly orchard pest has been given approval for use in Canada by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA). It will be ready commercially in time for application during this year’s cherry season.

To use the new product, all a cherry grower needs is about 10 minutes, a quad, a backpack sprayer, some No. 2 nozzles and a spray called GF-120.

This product, touted as environmentally friendly, is an attract-and-kill spray. Its active ingredient is spinosad, made from a soil bacteria. A biologically derived insecticide, spinosad interferes with a cherry fruit fly’s neurological activity and it subsequently dies before it can deposit its eggs under a cherry’s skin.

Its arrival on the market for this year is timely. PMRA requires both toxicology and efficacy tests before officials grant a Pest Control Product number to a product. However, GF-120 had been in use for the last three years in the US and the agency accepted US toxicology data, which helped to fast track the registration process.

Cherry orchardist Greg Norton conducted trials on GF-120 in the area last June. He is thrilled about the approval. Long a proponent of the spray since learning of its use in Washington state orchards, he had joined forces with Cawston entomologist and organic grower, Linda Edwards, to press for its registration in this country.

"Now we are ready to go," said Norton. "We did the trials last year and they were successful and the trial results were a part of the registration process. We also worked with Tim Smith out of Washington State University who did the original work on GF-120 and he did some trials for us too."

So what puts the grin on Norton’s face when he talks about GF-120? He said it is proven efficacy that doesn’t come at the expense of the environment, the neighbours, the family pet, the children or the grandkids.

It all comes down to composition: one litre of GF-120 solution contains just 0.02 per cent spinosad and 99.98 per cent water and sugars (mainly molasses) which act as the attractant. That solution is further diluted in four parts water by the grower, before being applied in a thin stream to the tree.

"Flies like warmth, so you aim the nozzle for the top half of the tree and the stream will blotch the leaves and the bark. The flies come and find it and think they’ve really hit the good stuff."

As Norton sees it, the product is a grower’s dream—re-entry time into the orchard is four hours, and application is zero days to harvest—meaning it can be used very late in the cherry season, right up to the night before the cherries are picked.

And because the product is ejected in a stream rather than a spray there is no fogging involved and GF-120 can be applied on a windy day. That is a big bonus for growers who are prohibited from using airblast sprayers when the wind blows, a regulation that often puts orchardists at the mercy of fruit pests because an interrupted spray renewal schedule leaves the grower without insecticide coverage.

"This is just a huge thing for growers," said Norton, referring to the product’s flexibility and application schedule of every seven days. "And there is just an incredible body of interest in GF-120."

Other fruit growers are looking at the attract-and-kill technology too and wondering if it would work on the pests that target their crops. He notes that Ontario apple growers are going to conduct trials to see if GF-120 is lethal to apple maggot. As well, blueberry farmers are curious too and they may do some testing also.

What makes Norton especially jubilant, though, is the product’s potential in the domestic market. Currently, backyard cherry trees in the vicinity of commercial orchards can pose a gigantic financial headache for a grower, because one cherry tree can produce thousands of cherry fruit flies and even one ‘sting’ to a cherry can make his crop unmarketable.

"Backyard growers could put GF-120 into a squirt bottle, walk around their yard and give 21 squirts to a big tree."

However, the benefits may go beyond what works for a grower and the community-at-large. Nature could eventually be an appreciative recipient too.

Said Norton, "Leaves work best when their little pores aren’t filled up with spray. The whole photosynthesis process works a lot better when particles of spray aren’t clogging up the leaves.

"And that is one of the projects being looked at the Pacific Agri-food Research Centre (PARC)—monitoring trees to see what effects sprays have on photosynthesis, because there is some concern that they interrupt and interfere with the process and we (PARC and the Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers’ Association) are trying to determine to what extent that interruption is."

Dow AgroSciences has the patent on GF-120 and has the distribution rights to it in Canada. And while Dow isn’t interested in the smaller domestic market, Norton said they would sub-contract the work to companies who put such products out in domestic quantities.

Tim Watson, horticulturist at South Valley Sales, said they were awaiting shipment of GF-120 and noted it would be sold in a commercial-sized container.

"We think it will be a very good product," said Watson. "Its ease of application is going to be a real benefit, for one thing, and it will be used in conjunction with other cherry fruit fly controls as well."

Reduced services

Now here is a scary scenario. Building inspection by the town’s building inspector will be reduced because of liability concerns. In the future, ‘complex’ buildings will not be inspected at all and ‘standard’ buildings will only be inspected for ‘health and safety aspects of the work.’

No doubt this is in part fallout from the leaky condo situation where municipalities and the provincial government have been sued by aggrieved owners when their buildings failed to keep out the elements.

The response then is to limit the inspections to those areas that are generally not a problem. Given that the public supports functions like building inspection because they want assurances about the real hazards, we have to wonder what protection we will actually derive from the service.

The really scary part is that although the fees for the service are expected to fall, the hours that the building inspector puts in are expected to remain the same. More paper work coming out of a reduced service will eat up most of the time. Sounds like Parkinson’s First Law which reads: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Ya have to wonder!