Putting Jasper on the eco-map
Jasper is getting its first public charging station for electric cars.
Janet Cooper, environmental stewardship coordinator, told council that after an inquiry from an electric car owner, she started doing some research and realized that outside of major centres there are very few charging stations in Alberta. But, fortunately, there is a charging station in the plans for the library and cultural centre.
Because of that, Jasper will be on the map—on numerous plug share websites—as an electric car friendly community.
“The good news is we’re not going to be holding anybody up from their journey,” said Cooper, who noted that there might also be a second charging station going in at Pine Bungalows. “We certainly don’t want to be the place that doesn’t have a public charger.”
Coun. Rico Damota agreed and suggested it might be a good idea to add stations at some of the park’s attractions.
“If we had a few of these up at the ski hill and maybe at some of the waterfall parking lots and in the community, I think that would be a great feather in our cap.”
Reuse-It Centre needs donations
It’s been a rough winter for the Reuse-It Centre.
First its future was unknown as it waited for a decision from council, as to whether the municipality would support the centre with $10,000 to help with operational costs for 2014.
And now, six week after receiving that support, it is in need of donations.
Janet Cooper, environmental stewardship coordinator, reported to council that the centre has people coming in looking for furniture, but it doesn’t have the donations to support those people.
“The Reuse-It Centre has had a very bad January and February in terms of donations,” she said. “There is a huge need for furniture. That’s what everyone wants, we have customers coming in, but we don’t have the donations.”
With all of its struggles the past two years, Cooper said the centre will reevaluate its future in June when its lease is up at the Anglican Church.
The Reuse-It Centre is open the same hours as the United Church Thrift Shop: Monday and Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and Thursday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Water modelling begins
The operations department has begun a project that will see the town’s waterlines inventoried and modelled, so the municipality will know which lines need to be replaced and when.
A survey crew was in town earlier this month to start the project, first looking at the town’s surface infrastructure.
Bruce Thompson, director of operations, said that once the snow has melted, municipal staff will start “ground truthing” to determine just what’s hiding under Jasper’s streets. That work will then be put into a computer to create maps of the town’s infrastructure.
This will be done in collaboration with Mike Mitchell—Jasper’s geomatics technician, who works for both the municipality and Jasper National Park.
Waste audit: diversion up, waste up
Although Jasperites continue to divert more and more waste each year, the total amount of garbage trucked to the landfill in 2013 increased, affecting the town’s overall rate of waste diversion.
In 2012, Jasper saw a 37 per cent diversion rate, while in 2013 it decreased to 30 per cent.
Janet Cooper, Jasper’s environmental stewardship coordinator, said she believes the increase in garbage was from the numerous construction projects taking place, as all of that construction waste is trucked straight to the Hinton landfill.
“The good news is with our larger recycling programs we actually increased the amount of material we were diverting: that’s things like beverage containers, cardboard and organics,” said Cooper.
“Beverage containers is about 20 per cent of everything we’re diverting, 19 per cent for cardboard and 18 per cent for organics. That’s good news.”
