Year of the sheep on a vineyard

Cheryl Lans with quotes from David Avery

Lunar New Year 2015 http://www.google.com/doodles/lunar-new-year-2015 via @/google.com/doodleste an Office Mix

www.brandever.com/_pdf/_news/2004_02_07_National_Post.pdf

SP5. How newfriends ih high places saved a BC. winery. BY JOHN T.D. Ksvas in Vancouver. David and Liz Avery own a four- hectare organic vineyard

Formerly organic property now contaminated

Waste from the Port Mann Bridge construction and the Gateway Project on Hwy 1 was dumped onto Strong Pit behind the Avery property

His mom died and we don’t know why

He gets mostly goat milk, once some quinoa milk and can’t mooch off the other moms

Flocks; the sheep on rented land

My idea and I am taking credit

David Avery says that this is my brilliant idea and no one on the farm ever did it before- it is light enough to move every day and provides shelter from the endless rain

Did you bring my milk?

Yes I can round the sheep up if allowed to, and the ducks and chickens and I can dig the Kubota out of the compost row and the weeds. ..Wait, weeds? I thought it was a mouse you saw!

Rented land for sheep, cows and pigs

This rented land was reclaimed and now has many waterfowl

Wikipedia waterfowl

Many birds

These bird pictures come from Wikipedia, and represent the birds on the property

Solar powered fencing

When you have to move them in pouring rain every day, and your boots have holes, you have a brief longing for permanent fences.

You say solar powered chicken fence

I say trusting chicken gets more worms than I can find for myself. Keep cleaning those planters.

Moving the chicken houses

Yes I am coming

I’m the littlest and I’m staying home with my dad

12 dead catsDavid Avery says that 12 of the farm’s cats ended up dead with tire tracks on them during the years that the trucking company was dumping toxic waste from the Port Mann Bridge construction and the Gateway Project on Hwy 1 onto Strong Pit behind his property.

See confirmation that the waste was dumped at Strong Pit here:

http://www.aldergrovestar.com/news/123585339.html

Lights shone all night into the Avery and neighbouring houses, from somewhere over here

Yes we howl all day

When did they eat, if they never stopped howling? They’re gone to other homes now.

Camera on auto-focus? Really?

Howling all day, Trucking all night

David Avery said that the trucks to Strong Pit worked all day and most of the night for years and threw up rocks onto his property. Some of which he was angry enough to put back on the road – leading to a meeting with a rep from the trucking company.

http://iaerc.pmh1.ca/01_Management%20Plans/01_PMH1/01_CEMP/PMH1%20CEMP%20Rev%2010/S0_ENV_CEMP-PMH1_8%200%20Contaminated%20Sites_Rev10_2013-06-01.pdf

ABBOTSFORD Report No. ENG 42-2009 July 31,2009 File No: 4520-40 (SRP #'s 113,145, 1293) To: Mayor and

Council COUNCIL REPORT Executive Committee From: Subject: Dave Loewen, Manager, Engineering

Inspections and Permits Request to Haul Gravel at Night for Gateway Project RECOMMENDATIONS 1. THAT

Report No. ENG 42-2009, dated July 31, 2009, from the Manager, Engineering Inspections and Permits,

regarding a request for night hauling of gravel from the Ministry of Transportation gravel pit (Strong Pit), on

King Road, and for soil deposit at the Bradner Road Central Pit, from Lafarge Canada Inc., and at 2211

Lefeuvre Road (SRP 1293) for construction of the Port Mann Bridge (Gateway Project), be received; and 2.

THAT Council grant approval for night hauling of gravel for the purposes of the Gateway Project construction

for the duration of the project

https://abbotsford.civicweb.net/document/11886/ENG%2042-

2009%20Request%20to%20Haul%20Gravel%20at%20Night%20for%20Gateway%20Project.pdf?handle=9010

ECD80D204FC6BBB3E43753CBBC40

Dumping took place on reclaimed land

Wikipedia and

Audubon Canada

goose

David Avery wrote “one of the Senior Engineers on the

project he was signing off on hundreds of truckloads of toxic waste coming out of the old waste sites on both sides of the river; Surrey and Coquitlam. That is fact confirmed by a retired employee of Highways. It was been transported back to the gravel pit behind us which is managed by Highways on provincial crown land.

David Avery wrote

The reason being the Richmond toxic waste site reached capacity early on in the excavation. The Engineer will not step forward until he retires as whistle blowers are shunned by industry and he would not find work”.

“We confronted City Hall here in Abbotsford as Highways operates gravel pits under municipal reclamation permits.

David Avery wrote They inquired about my

allegations and were told by Highways it would only be a 'temporary storage facility' for the pcb's, dioxins, and heavy metals contained in the toxic soup. Christie had 48 hours to come up with a new place to dump this material at a time when the bridge was forecast to be 1.5 bil over budget

David Avery wrote

..18 months behind schedule, and Kiewit was ready to pull out. Taking this waste to the next closest legal toxic waste site SE of Calgary our Engineer acquaintance explained,

Wikipedia

waterfowl pics

David Avery wrote

would have added 800 mil to 1 bil to the cost, if we had enough dump trucks and drivers in the province to make the trek..”

in the meantime the City of Abbotsford had requested we sign a covenant on our property which would have restricted any further construction, at the sane time our original permit for our temporary wine shop required we replace it with a new building................... a catch 22.

David Avery wrote

They since modified their request to a fire protection covenant on the wine shop only, the public building

I had already had a meeting with our mortgage holder, as required in the mortgage agreement, to disclose the escalating toxic waste site.

Audubon American Beaver

David Avery wrote

The VP of RBC went ballistic........ he called the ministry of environment only to find out unless he had first hand knowledge they wouldn't even look into it.

Our mortgage came up for renewal that year.............. and RBC thanked us for revealing the facts of the toxic waste by raising our risk factor to one of the highest categories

David Avery wrote

from one of the lowest and nearly tripling our interest rates and only weeks to sign. When I reminded them that they way copies of our cash flow statements and we didn't net enough to cover the hike in the interest payment, they just told us 'sign it' or get some other bank to take it over.

David Avery wrote

I said that of course we would have to disclose the toxins to them as well, he recommended we not do that........................

Winslow Homer The Reaper 1878 collage

David Avery We were appalled. We then sought advice regarding the renewal and what to do. We were told not to sign nor make the last two payments as it was likely the property value had plummeted below the value of the mortgage and we had nothing to lose. That was about three years ago.

David Avery wrote RBC started foreclosure to try and

scare us into moving our mortgage but backed off when the following incident was printed in the paper, highly edited and watered down I might add, and I disclosed the toxic waste site on the record in court. Since then they and their law firm have made themselves scarce................ at least in the meantime.

David Avery wrote

Since then the M of H and M of E have engaged in a gross cover up. Even going to the extent of blaming our compost operation for a salishsucker fish kill a year ago last summer.

David Avery wrote

I have got a verbal quote to protect our land from migration of the toxins.............. in excess of a $mil............... If RBC ended up with it the environmental liability would likely be between 2-3 $mil I'm told.

David Avery wrote

The chemistry they used to draw that conclusion is impossible; you take a large pond with neutral pH, add high pH runoff from finished compost, you don't end up with water at pH 5.3. But you do if you add effluent from toxic waste storage at pH 4.7 - 4.8 as is flowing from that site

David Avery wrote

................ As the M of E knows the truth they have never charged us with the fish kill and continue threatening us with everything they can come up with in an attempt to shut us up............

Blame game in the mystery of the fish kill http://www.ottawacitizen.com/News/9925879/story.html

David Avery wrote

Needless to say RBC would not sign the covenant so the City of Abbotsford, in their retaliatory fashion did not grant our business license without the covenant we could not possibly fulfill

David Avery wrote

and promptly called LCLB to inform them we didn't have a business license which forced LCLB to suspend our license................. that was 18 months ago.

David Avery wrote

We can no longer sell, promote or make wine................ So we give it away in the wine shop and ask patrons to leave a donation to our favourite charities in lieu of paying us. Needless to say we can't do that much longer......................

I am starting to feel I am more of an activist than a potential politician.....................

We are seriously considering creating a

petition on change.org.

We would transfer ownership of the

property to a npo we create, then petition

RBC to forgive the mortgage under the

circumstances,

then go after the provincials to turn the 160 acre contaminated site behind us over to that npo, and work with the Universities and Colleges to run experiments with trees, shrubs, and other plants to find ways of sequestering the toxins and eventually detoxifying the properties

David Avery wrote

David Avery wrote

............. a lemon into lemonaidfor all involved, and asked to be compensated for our loss.We have advertised our business and property for sale for about 3.5 years now. Three deals have collapsed on the business and the highest offer we have received on a once valued property of $1.3 mil was $50,000.

I have had nearly three hundred inquiries while the asking price dropped from 850 to 450 and now $175,000...................... but everyone has shunned away when told the truth.................. who can blame them at any price. We certainly don't want to live here......................... the toxins have started bubbling to the surface next door...........

David Avery wrote

David Avery is President of the Biodynamic Association

The methods of SLR are based on Biodynamic agriculture, a specific form of organic agriculture which views the farm as a self-contained, self-sustaining ecosystem responsible for creating and maintaining its individual health and vitality without any external or unnatural additions. Soil, plants, animals and humans together create this image of a holistic living organism.

.

http://www.sekem.com/slr.html

Biodynamic farming

SEKEM applies Biodynamic agricultural methods, with compost being the major component in turning desert land into living and healthy soils. The application of resilient crops and natural predators prevent the introduction of external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides

He stopped selling his wine as organic. But shouldn’t he have done more? It does not take much to search on the Internet to find out what plants and trees to use.

David Avery is President of the Biodynamic Association

Vladimir Yegorovich Makovsky

phytoremediation

http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajb/article/viewFile/92167/81620

Trees/Plants mentioned:

Poplar, Willow, horseradish,

Other options are already on site like cattails and reeds. Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Landscape with Shepherds and Flock of

Sheep, c. 1763-6

Maybe I am biased because I don’t like flat land.

I did not have to live through the constant noise and the lights at night and those can definitely alter your perception.

If I had land and someone put a mountain behind it I would say thank you very much and by the way I have the training to fix the pollution over time so maybe you should fork over some funding.

I like the eagles and the ducks and

the geese

David Avery

Proprietor/Winemaker Lotuslandvineyards President Over 49 Vineyards & Vines Ltd. and Grape Vine Sales Regenerative, Bio-Dynamic Organic Group of Companies