Beetle Meeting Post Poned

By 250 News

"I'm telling you, it happened in days". Those are the words  of Ft. St. John Mayor, Jim Eglinski as he prepares for that City's first meeting on how to deal with the sudden appearance of the mountain pine beetle.

Eglinski says  he had just come back from a  conference at which the Ministry of Forests had put on a detailed  presentation  about themountain pine beetle "At the conference, it was pretty clear the Ministry though the beetle wouldn't be in our  region till  2014".  Eglinski says there was no sign of the beetle  when  he went to the conference, but when he got back, just a few days later, all that changed.  "A man called and said  there was something funny happening to the trees in his yard, so the City Manager and I  went over to take a look .  We took some samples and sent them off to the lab.  We were pretty sure it was  the beetle, but we wanted to be certain."  Sure enough, the lab results came back confirming their suspicions.

Eglinski says Ft. St. John Council was to address the issue  at a Council meeting set for today, but  the meeting has been postponed until Thursday as they couldn't geet a quarum before then.  "We will be talking about what to do and how we might be able to assist property owenrs." says Eglinski.  He says  there are  25 - 50 trees on private property that will have to be dealt with "Here, most of the trees are part of a landscaping scheme and certainly,  the possibility of  financial compensation to remove  the trees, or  replace the  trees will  likely be discussed" says Eglinski.  

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