By Kathy Michaels

Tomorrow will mark the start of a year- long process aimed at clearing up the issues around local gravel pits.

A task force comprised of aggregate producers, members of the public and elected officials will have their first meeting tomorrow, said MLA Norm Letnick at a Chamber of Commerce meeting this afternoon.

“The aggregate issue for the Central Okanagan Regional District is a serious one,” he said. “Around 50 to 60 per cent of all the gravel that’s used is for public uses like highways and building hospitals so we need to find good sources. But at the same time whenever you pull aggregate out of the ground you will have some neighbours with some concerns.”

Those concerns were well vocalized in years past. In neighbourhoods from the Mission to West Kelowna, resident associations voiced their concerns over the health and safety concerns associated with both aggregate removal and transportation. Many of those who expressed dismay at burgeoning gravel pit operations said they understood that there was a need for aggregate, but they’d rather not see it dusting their oftentimes quiet neighbourhoods.”

“So in the next year and a half we’ll work together to identify in the Central Okanagan Regional district, where the aggregate should be coming from, green” he said.  “Where it shouldn’t be coming from will be red and the ones in the middle we will label yellow.”