B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop has hired a new executive director, the charity’s board announced on Tuesday (October 12).

Mark Romeril is a cycling enthusiast and bike mechanic with extensive education as well as work and volunteer experience in the cycling community. He most recently worked for Cycle Toronto where he held several positions over seven years, including membership manager and development manager.

“We are at a time in B!KE’s history where we are poised to take on new projects,” says B!KE board chair Jackie Donaldson in a media release. “Mark has the skills and experience — and the enthusiasm — to lead us through the next chapter of our development.”

At Cycle Toronto, Romeril also helped develop anti-oppression programming, and has “a strong commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion” according to the media release.

“It is important that B!KE stay accessible and welcoming to everybody,” Romeril says.

Romeril was also a volunteer instructor mechanic for almost a decade at DIY community bike projects across Ontario. He has a master’s degree in urban planning from Ryerson University and worked hard to advocate for cycling access in the city of Toronto.

“I trained to be a planner because I’ve always had a deep interest in people and the communities they live in,” Romeril says. “A big part of that is how people get around.”

Although he lived and worked in Toronto until recently, Romeril grew up in Lindsay and is familiar with Peterborough

“I often came to Peterborough for the big city experience, like watching a movie on a big screen,” he said. “I was here almost every weekend taking violin lessons.”

Romeril’s partner attended Trent University, and the couple has many friends in the area. They moved to Peterborough from Toronto last spring.

“I know B!KE is very well loved and there are high expectations for how the organization is directed and cared for,” Romeril says. “I hope to meet and exceed these expectations.”

He begins his executive director role on Monday, October 18th.

Romeril replaces Tegan Moss, who had been executive director at B!KE since 2011. She has greatly increased B!KE’s capacity for cycling education, including by launching in-school cycling programs, community bicycle repair and riding workshops, and Earn-A-Bike programs for youth and adults, and guided the organization to achieve charitable status.

Moss left B!KE to become the new executive director of Peterborough GreenUP in early September.

“The board wishes Tegan great success in her new endeavour and thanks her immensely for the decade of community, program, and bike building she brought to the organization,” Donaldson says. “Through her strategic and community-focused leadership B!KE has become an established hub for cyclists of all interests, needs and abilities.”

Located at 293 George Street North in downtown Peterborough, B!KE: the Peterborough Community Bike Shop supports cycling among all ages and abilities by offering a range of community programming, a teaching workshop for bike repair and maintenance, and sales of affordable bikes and bike parts.

A crowdfunding campaign is underway for a documentary film to raise awareness about the largest known stand of old-growth eastern hemlock in Canada — located in a area of the Kawarthas known as the Catchacoma Forest.

A project by Toronto-born documentary filmmaker Mitch Bowmile, “Conserving Catchacoma” will document the efforts of the Catchacoma Forest Stewardship Committee, the BC-based non-profit Wilderness Committee, and the Peterborough-based non-profit Ancient Forest Exploration & Research (AFER) to prevent additional logging of old-growth eastern hemlock trees in the forest.

“Many people are unaware that Ontario’s forests hold large quantities of old-growth trees,” Bowmile writes on his Indiegogo page. “There’s a need for more field work to determine and identify areas of old-growth in Ontario so that it can gain protective status.”

The Catchacoma Forest is a 662-hectare stand of mature eastern hemlock north of Catchacoma Lake in Peterborough County, beside Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park.

In 2019, Dr. Peter Quinby, AFER’s chief scientist, identified the Catchacoma Forest as the largest-known stand of old-growth eastern hemlock in Canada, after AFER found many trees over 120 years old — with the oldest tree, a 350-year-old eastern hemlock, marked for logging.

Quinby began working with Katie Krelove — the first-ever Ontario campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, a registered non-profit society and federal charity founded in 1980 that works to preserve wilderness and protect wildlife across Canada — along with a group of concerned citizens, to bring the presence of old-growth trees in Catchacoma Forest to the attention of the Ontario government.

The Conserving Catchacoma group has been calling for a moratorium on logging in the forest, which they say is also home to at least 10 documented species at risk. Portions of the forest were logged in the winter of 2019-20 and 2020-21 including, according to the group, many eastern hemlock trees that were more than 140 years old. Eastern hemlocks, which can live up to 600 years, are often overlooked as old-growth trees because they grow slowly and their trunks may not be that large — while trunk size is an indicator, determining actual age involves taking a core sample to count the rings.

The Catchacoma Forest is located in what’s known as the Bancroft Minden Forest Management Unit (a designation by the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry), an area comprising 400,000 hectares. The Bancroft Minden Forest Company holds the sustainable forest license to manage the Crown land within the area, and is responsible for developing a 10-year forest management plan that is ultimately approved by the ministry.

Along with its efforts for a moratorium on logging in the Catchacoma Forest, the Conserving Catchacoma group is also lobbying provincial government to have the forest’s land use designation amended from “general use” to “conservation reserve” — pointing out that doing so will help the Ontario government meet its pledge to protect 25 per cent of land by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030. The group says only 10.7 per cent of land is currently protected in Ontario.

For its part, the Bancroft Minden Forest Company states the Catchacoma Forest is not an untouched old-growth forest, having been previously logged in 1988, and consists of species other than eastern hemlock — although the company acknowledges old-growth trees in the forest have been logged.

“While there is a presence of old trees, forests are not managed based on individual tree ages,” says the company’s general manager Svetlana Zeran in a 2020 opinion piece, adding that registered professional foresters recommend the harvesting of less vigorous trees while retaining healthy trees “that will benefit from a release from competition.”

“The goal of this particular harvest is to favour retention of hemlock with healthy large crowns (stems and leaves) to create the sunlight conditions needed to build them up,” Zeran explains. “This would help them grow more resilient to the likely threat of future attacks from the invasive insect: hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) which slowly depletes hemlock nutrient stores by feeding on their needles. To ensure this prescription was carried out, a certified tree marker assessed every tree and marked with paint those for removal and those with high wildlife value for retention.”

The Conserving Catchacoma group points out it’s not against logging, recognizing the economic and ecological benefits of sustainable harvesting of trees and the expertise of forest management companies.

“The logging industry provides valuable services to our managed forests in Ontario and Canada,” Bowmile writes on Indiegogo. “Sustainable logging practices greatly benefit the health of a forest ecosystem. The work of loggers and foresters is vital to both ecological and industry values.”

However, the group is against the logging of old-growth trees since it’s not a sustainable practice.

“Old growth trees have significant benefits to a forest ecosystem,” Bowmile writes. “The most significant to humans is that they’ve stored a significant amount of carbon (CO2) since they were saplings. When old-growth trees rot, are cut, or are burned, carbon is released into our atmosphere contributing to the human-caused climate crisis.”

“With further studies needed to determine just how much old-growth is left in the province of Ontario, remaining stands of old-growth forests need to be protected. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.”

With persistent efforts, the Conserving Catchacoma group has succeeded in having its concerns reflected in the 2021-2031 Draft Bancroft Minden Forest Management Plan.

As well as recognizing two hemlock-dominated stands near Catchacoma Lake as “unavailable for forest management”, the plan changes the harvesting designation of one area of the forest from “regular” to “contingency” — meaning harvesting is less likely to happen.

Regular harvesting in two areas of the forest will also be delayed for one year to allow ministry staff to complete additional surveys for species at risk as well as to provide technical guidance for verifying and delineating old-growth trees.

Despite these successes, the Conserving Catchacoma group notes one-fifth of the forest remains eligible for regular harvesting and, after the one-year delay in the two specified areas, regular harvesting could begin again. The Wilderness Committee and AFER are calling for a longer moratorium on logging so that further research can be conducted and the Catchacoma forest can be protected.

Bowmile is seeking to raise $5,000 to support the “Conserving Catchacoma” documentary, which is intended to share information about the Catchacoma Forest and its ecological value and to advocate for the identification and protection of old-growth trees in Ontario’s forests. Funding will go towards production and post-production costs associated with the film, with any leftover funds going towards film distribution and marketing.

For more information, visit www.conservingcatchacoma.com and follow Conserving Catchacoma on Instagram @conservingcatchacoma. To support the documentary, visit indiegogo.com/projects/conserving-catchacoma-fundraiser/.

The Catchacoma Forest is located on the Treaty 20 Michi Saagiig territory and in the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the Williams Treaties First Nations, which include Curve Lake, Hiawatha, Alderville, Scugog Island, Rama, Beausoleil, and Georgina Island First Nations.

Two people are dead following a two-vehicle collision on Saturday afternoon (October 9) south of Manilla, around 10 kilometres west of Lindsay.

The collision happened at around 12:25 p.m. on Simcoe Street at Brock Concession Road 6.

Both drivers, lone occupants of the vehicles, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are not releasing the names of the victims until their next of kin have been notified.

Simcoe Street is closed while Kawartha Lakes OPP investigate the collision. Detours are in place at Salem Road and Cresswell Road.

Police are asking any witnesses who have not yet spoken to the OPP about this incident to contact the City of Kawartha Lakes OPP at 1-888-310-1122.

The OPP is reminding the public to slow down on roadways and take their time while travelling this long weekend. Dangerous drivers can be reported to OPP by calling 1-888-310-1122 or 9-1-1 in an emergency.

The Ontario government has lifted all capacity limits on concert venues, theatres, cinemas, meeting and event spaces, spectator areas of sports facilities, and more, and is removing the requirement for physical distancing.

The changes, which come into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, were quietly announced by the government on Friday afternoon (October 8) before the Thanksgiving weekend.

“With public health and health care indicators remaining stable or improving, the government, in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health, is cautiously lifting capacity limits in select indoor and outdoor settings where proof of vaccination is required, as well as certain outdoor settings that have a capacity below 20,000,” a media release reads.

Effective Saturday, capacity limits will be lifted to allow 100 per cent capacity in the following settings:

• Concert venues, theatres and cinemas
• Spectator areas of facilities for sports and recreational fitness (this does not include gyms or personal training facilities)
• Meeting and event spaces (indoor meeting and event spaces will still need to limit capacity to the number that can maintain physical distancing)
• Horse-racing tracks, car racing tracks, and other similar venues
• Commercial film and television productions with studio audiences.

According to the province, there have been a limited number of COVID-19 outbreaks in these settings.

Proof of full vaccination is still required for entry to these settings, and other public health and workplace safety measures remain in effect, which may include wearing face coverings, screening, and the collecting of patron information to support contact tracing.

In settings where capacity limits have been lifted, the requirement for individuals to maintain two metres of physical distancing is being removed, except in indoor meeting and event spaces.

Proof of vaccination will continue to be required in outdoor settings where the normal maximum capacity is 20,000 people or more.

Capacity limits will continue to remain in effect in all other remaining settings at this time.

Peterburgers, a restaurant located at 25 George Street North in Peterborough, has been charged with failing to comply with proof of vaccination checks and two other violations of public health requirements under the Reopening Ontario Act.

The charge for failing to comply with proof of vaccination checks is the first such charge issued by Peterborough Public Health, according to a media release from the health unit on Friday afternoon (October 8).

According to manager of environmental health Julie Ingram, inspectors with Peterborough Public Health used a “progressive enforcement approach” at Peterburgers, beginning with education of the owner two weeks ago, on September 24.

This was followed by issuing a written warning notice the following Tuesday (September 28). Inspectors delivered the warning notice in person and discussed it with the owner.

The warning notice was discussed further via email between Peterborough Public Health and the restaurant’s owner. Last Friday (October 1) during a follow-up inspection, the owner confirmed they would comply with the requirement to check proof of vaccination.

“While we were hopeful that the business would comply, continued investigation this week confirmed ongoing noncompliance by the establishment,” Ingram states, adding that three charges were issued to the owner today.

The charges under the Reopening Ontario Act are for failing to confirm proof of vaccination and identification of indoor diners, failing to ensure the use of masking and face coverings in the indoor area, and failing to collect contact information for patrons remaining at the premises to dine.

The three charges have a fine of $880 each, for a total amount of $2,640.

“Peterborough Public Health is working with enforcement partners to continue to monitor this premises and the situation,” reads the media release. “Additional enforcement action will be taken, if necessary.”

Peterborough County OPP is reminding drivers, especially on Highway 7, that it is both unsafe and illegal to pass a stopped school bus when its red lights are flashing and its stop sign is extended.

Police have recently received multiple complaints from school bus drivers that drivers are passing stopped school buses while children are getting on and off the bus.

“No students have been injured but dangerous situations were created,” reads a police media release. “Drivers cannot start moving until the red lights have stopped flashing, the stop arm has been retracted, and the bus has started to move.”

The requirement to stop applies to all vehicles travelling on all lanes of multi-lane highways that do not have a median between lanes, such as Highway 7.

“Highway 7 continues to be an area of concern in regards to vehicles passing school buses that have its red lights activated and stop sign extended,” the media release states.

Fines are $400 to $2,000, with six demerit points, for the first offence.

For each subsequent offence, fines rise to $1,000 to $4,000 with an additional six demerit points, with possible jail time of up to six months.