community

With spring in the air, many people will be heading outside to do spring clean up around their homes and properties and the RDEK is urging residents doing any spring burning to use caution.

“Anyone doing spring burning must make sure they are taking steps to be prepared by having a water source, shovel or tools, burning when it’s not windy and staying on site monitoring the fire until it is completely out,” says Columbia Valley Rural Fire & Rescue Chief Jim Miller.

Starting in May, the sale of fireworks will be prohibited in the rural parts of the RDEK, one month later than originally proposed.

As days grow warmer, people in the Columbia Basin are looking forward to enjoying outdoor spaces—those in nature, and those in our communities. Looking ahead to times when restrictions ease, many communities are wondering how they can make the gathering places within their limits more welcoming and useable, or how they can add new ones altogether.

To realize their ideas, some communities have turned to Columbia Basin Trust’s Community Outdoor Revitalization Grants. Currently, this program is providing over $1.3 million to help 10 communities undertake such projects.

Between March 26 and 29 vandals destroyed and removed newly-installed recreation use signs in the Koocanusa area, causing an estimated $5,000 in property damage. The signs were installed to communicate the new regulations for the Koocanusa Recreation Management Area, which limits motorized recreation to designated roads and trails, and restricts Crown land camping to designated sites.