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LETTER: Cottonwood Creek well taken care of

From reader John Armstrong
park
The viewpoint on the west side of Cottonwood Falls in Nelson.

Re: “Friends of Kootenay Lake cleanup Cottonwood Falls Park,” Nelson Star, Oct. 4
Volunteering is good for the community and good for the soul. It’s good for Cottonwood Creek too. Accordingly, the Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society wishes to extend our appreciation to the 24 volunteers with the Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society who participated in the Sept. 22 cleanup of Cottonwood Creek.
However, we feel that both the headline and parts of the report were misleading in terms of the condition of Cottonwood Falls Park and the ongoing work of our Friendship Society volunteers.
Our members have been caring for the Friendship Garden and the park for 20 years and our most dedicated volunteers are there almost every day. On Sept. 21, the chair of our garden committee wrote me to say the park “looked spotless! No beer cans, pop cans, discarded clothing or garbage.” It was then very surprising to read that “thousands of pieces of litter and trash” had been “picked up in and around the park” by the Friends of Kootenay Lake the very next day. This could not possibly have been the case.
The Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society has responded to our concerns, confirming that the trash collected came from further downstream and apologizing for the way the report may have come off. We appreciate their response and understand that this was perhaps a case of over-enthusiastic reporting.
The Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society wants to assure people that when they come down to Cottonwood Falls Park, they will find a beautiful, well-cared for, accessible sister city garden and park, now with historical signage on both sides of the creek, maintained almost year-round by our committed volunteer members with much support from the City of Nelson’s Public Works staff.
John Armstrong
President, Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society