Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter Lexi Bainas has been combing through old newspapers with the assistance of the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives so we can jog your memory, give you that nostalgic feeling, or just a chuckle, as we take a look at what was making headlines this week around Cowichan Lake in years gone by.
This week around the Cowichan Lake area…
10 years ago:
“New water system operating in Honeymoon Bay” may not sound like a sexy headline in the July 15, 2009 edition of the Lake Cowichan Gazette, but if you’ve been waiting for years for better drinking water, it’s the equivalent of “Free Beer!”
Let’s drill down a bit and find what had been happening at the Bay.
“It’s been about a dozen years in the making, many of them frustrating years, and now Honeymoon Bay has a new new water system hooked up.”
The water was coming from a 170 gallon per minute well.
Dave Leitch, water management manager for the Cowichan Valley Regional District, said getting the water from a well rather than from Ashburnham Creek or Cowichan Lake provides more security and requires less chlorination. The water will be pumped to the reservoir for treatment, then to a 105,000-gallon tank, with gravity drawing the water down to the users in Honeymoon Bay.
“When we were pumping water from the lake or getting it from Ashburnham Creek there were times when there was extra sediment in the water, which requires more chlorination,” said Leitch. “Sediment won’t be a problem with the well.”
25 years ago:
One of several front page stories in the July 13, 1994 issue of The Lake News suggested that Cowichan Lake itself may need protectors.
“A strong request that a joint planning committee to protect Cowichan Lake and its environs has been made in a letter from Joseph Allan, director of Area F to Mayor Earle Darling [of Lake Cowichan].
Allan said he has received “numerous calls” since the May long weekend about loud boats, high speed boats, house boats, noise, garbage, camping on private land, and the lack of campground facilities.
“I feel we must have the Joint Planning Committee formally established for the Cowichan Lake area. This would be a forum to discuss such issues and any possible solutions,” he said.
“The continual increase in recreational activity around the Lake has been a concern of residents for years but the recent surge in this activity has many residents asking what controls are in place or can be put in place to protect our lake and our lifestyle from being adversely affected,” he said.
40 years ago:
“LCSS back in ministry’s good graces: partial accreditation granted to school” trumpeted The Lake News on the front page of its July 11, 1979 edition.
Everyone had been desperately worried since the early spring.
“Lake Cowichan Senior Secondary School has been granted accreditation by the ministry of education following submission of a report described by the former principal as ‘massive’ and far-reaching.”
The school was granted provisional accreditation, a status somewhat less than the full accreditation which it lost in January. However, the prospects of achieving full accreditation appear to be good, according to Don Service, the former principal who will be teaching next term in Duncan while living in Lake Cowichan.
His optimism appears to stem from the compliments offered by the man who heads the committee responsible for granting or removing accreditation.
R.E.J. Watson, of the provincial accreditation committeee, commented in a letter to school superintendent R.W. Heustis acknowledging the granting of provisional accreditation: “I pass on the committee’s compliments on the achievements made to date…[The committee] was pleased with the care and detail evident in the work that the schoool and district personnel have invested this year in strengthening the school’s programs and operation.”
There was a lot more to that effect in the reply but Service, the man who was caught in the middle of the controversy connected with the withdrawal of accreditation was jubilant with reinstatement of accreditation, even though it was provisional.
“We’re now out of the low-ball game,” he said. “There is no reason why the school won’t get full accreditation. The school staff are to be highly commended for their accomplishment” in compiling the report.
lexi.bainas@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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