Over 120 people packed into the Bonnyville Senior's Drop-in centre last Thursday for LICA's 2015 annual general meeting, which highlighted the successes from the organization's past year.
The Lakeland Industry and Community Association (LICA) is a group of members from the community, local and provincial government, and members of oil and gas and other industries, working to share information and work towards solutions to local concerns.
“We are mandated to bring information from industry and the agriculture sector to the general public to unite both worlds,” said Harold Ross, who spent 2014 as a co-chair of the Education and Information Committee.
The committee was in charge of spearheading a variety of events over the course of the past year, which included LICA's Earth Day Birthday, a photo contest and the Earth Day writing contest.
“The (writing) contest is growing in leaps and bounds. If you have students we strongly encourage them to join,” said Ross. “We had 130 entries and every committee member reads every single essay. It is getting harder every year to decide a winner.”
The next group to take the stand was the Airshed Zone committee, which provided a detailed report on what has been done in terms of air quality monitoring over the past year.
“We are trying to get a better understanding of the air quality in the region,” said committee member Mike Bisaga. (Need to introduce this person Andrew).
The committee uses a passive monitoring network consisting of 27 passive samplers, along with three air-monitoring trailers set up at Cold Lake South, St. Lina and Marie Lake and a mobile air-monitoring trailer, which will be moving from Elk Point to Bonnyville in the coming months.
The committee also employs systems, which test local soil acidification. Monitoring sites are set up at Moose Lake, Whitney Lake, Tucker Lake and the Cold Lake Fish Hatchery.
Surface water acidification monitoring is also in place. Last year the group used data collected by the ESRD, AEMERA, and ALMS to help them study 64 lakes in the LICA region.
“A lot of the data we use is collected by other organizations. We will use their data to answer our questions,” said Bisaga.
As for 2015 the group already has several plans on the agenda.
At the request of a local stakeholder who was worried about the potential for reduced air quality in the Beaver River Valley, the committee will be setting up equipment to monitor the air flow in the region.
“We are going to be implementing a study to assess the air flow in the valley,” said Bisaga.
“All of these monitoring programs provide an awful lot of data. There is many ways (the public) can access that data.”
All of the information collected by the LICA committees is posted to the LICA and ESRD websites along with several other online databases.
The group plans to offer those in the region a chance to tour the local air monitoring stations in the fall of 2015. An official date for the tour has yet to be set.
The last group to present at the meeting was the Beaver River Watershed Alliance. Unlike the other groups the BRWA is just affiliated with LICA and not funded by the organization. The BRWA has its own board of directors and receives its own government funding.
Just like LICA, the group goes around and talks with a variety of stakeholders involved with the watershed.
“We meet with industry, we meet with agriculture and we meet with recreation, but we don't meet with all of them at the same time,” said co-chair Gordon Graves.
The BRWA conducted a successful youth calendar contest, which saw over 100 entries.
“It is becoming quite an endeavor, but I really would like to thank the work the community outreach coordinator did,” said Graves.
The BRWA outreach coordinator visited 30 schools throughout the watershed in 2014, talked to youth groups, lead a large shoreline cleanup and co-hosted several information sessions.
The BRWA annual general meeting, which will provide more information on the organizations past year, will take place on April 30 at 5:30 p.m. at the Bonnyville Agri-plex.
The LICA Board of Directors was completely overhauled at its past annual general meeting with those in attendance choosing to inject some youth into the organizations top positions.
Gone are Board Chair Robert Deresh and Vice-Chair Delano Tolley. Replacing them are Harold Ross, Andrea Woods and Kristy Tetreau, who were elected in on two-year terms.
Ross severed as a board alternate last year and has experience on the board, while both Woods and Tetreau are new to the board.
In 2014, Woods was an integral member of the Education and Information committee, while Tetreau was co-chair of the Airshed Zone.
Deresh and Mildred Dunham were voted in as community alternates and are both on one-year terms.
