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Trail Times Year in Review: March

Trail Times staff look back on March 2017
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March 19 – The 2017 B.C. Pee Wee Tier hockey championships in Trail kicked off with Aliya Podmorrow’s rendition of “O Canada” during the opening ceremonies. Burnaby went on to win the nine-team tournament. Jim Bailey photo

March

3 —The Trail Smoke Eaters return to the BCHL playoffs for the first time in six years. Before crowds close to 2,000 fans, the team eliminates the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in five games to advance to the second round, where their run ended in five games at the hands of the Vernon Vipers.

3 —The popular Trail outdoor market will be taken over by the United Way in partnership with the City of Trail.

6 —Homes in Annable were placed under a boil water advisory after a sloughing bank broke a water line to the area.

7 —The City of Trail opts to stick with its $260 flat tax for homeowners for another year.

9 —The City of Trail announces it has purchased the Union Hotel and adjacent properties. The plan is to demolish the old hotel and remediate the properties to attract new investors to the community. The purchase price was $125,000 but the cost to remediate the properties is estimated at over $500,000.

15 —Teck Trail Operations announces the completion of its $46-million Groundwater Treatment Plant. The project is designed to remediate historic groundwater contamination beneath Trail Operations. Two wells located along the riverbank pump the water to the treatment plant.

17 —In what was called a “record sellout” fans swamped the Bailey Theatre’s ticket office and online service to snap up tickets to the Barenaked Ladies concert set for Trail on Nov. 7. The online demand for tickets was so great that it momentarily crashed the system.

21 —The Trail skate park project received $150,000 in the latest round of Columbia Basin Trust grants. The city said it remains committed to advance the project in 2018. Fruitvale Elementary School will also get a new playground thanks to the funding announcement as CBT directed a $67,000 grant towards that project.

21 —The BC SPCA unveils a new animal centre to be constructed in Castlegar to replace the old building in Trail.

22 —Teck Trail Operations announced that construction of a new $174-million acid plant will begin this spring. Three buildings from the 1960s and ’70s have been torn down to make way for the No. 2 Acid Plant, a copy of the first plant Teck constructed in 2014.

30 — The Beaver Valley Nitehawks defeat the Chase Heat 5-2 to capture the team’s third Kootenay International Junior Hockey League title in six years. The team advanced to the Cyclone Taylor Cup set for Creston in April.

31 — The Southeast Fire Centre’s monthly weather report states that March delivered the most days of measurable precipitation since local records began 52 years ago. The total amount of precipitation was almost twice the normal amount for March, stated the centre.