Hello neighbours, and welcome to October!
I am sure that you are now in the full swing of this new fall season. School, sports, work and other family routines are now getting to be old hat. Our community association’s board has also been back to work since September 8 and a few changes have happened since the summer break.
One of these changes has occurred on the board itself. Emmanuel Malterre, our Sears Plume Director, has tendered his resignation. Emmanuel has worked tirelessly for many years towards achieving a remediation of chemicals that have leaked into the soil of our community due to defective gas tanks at the former Sears gas bar.
He has been our liaison with Sears Canada Inc. and Clifton Associates Ltd., asking for technical information and updates on their plans and actions to address the contamination of soil on which some of you live. He has also written numerous letters appealing to government department heads at the municipal, provincial and even federal level, asking them to help us with this complicated process that has been dragging on for years as the contaminates work their way down the hill towards the Bow river.
Emmanuel’s tasks also included informing residents regularly about the Sears Plume and its remediation process by submitting monthly reports to our community board meetings, and yearly reports at our AGMs each November. As well, he has forwarded updates from Sears and Clifton for submissions to the Beacon (see the latest update presented in the August 2016 Beacon) and submitted several public documents for posting on our website (hh-bh.ca).
Emmanuel’s knowledge and hard work on this project will be missed, not only by all of us on the community association board but by all residents affected by this Plume. Thank you so much Emmanuel!
But this remediation process is not finished yet and it is an important health and environmental issue. I am therefore appealing to you, dear residents, to step forward to fill this vacancy on our board. Please consider volunteering to represent our community’s concerns and to work with Sears and Clifton on resolving this problem. Simply contact any board member or come to a meeting to get involved.
On a happier topic, our board has applied for and received a Capital Conservation Grant for $8,650.53. This money will be a great help in replacing the floor tiles in our community facility. Thank you to all those who helped make this happen!
I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that you will take the time to look around and appreciate how fortunate and privileged we are to live in such a great community.
Laura