City seeks private-sector partner for $10-million venture

Randy Shore
Sun

VANCOUVER – The City of Vancouver is seeking a private-sector partner to install and operate a wireless communications network that could provide free wireless Internet WiFi access to the entire city.

The network will require about 2,000 antennae, many of which will be installed on city buildings and infrastructure such as lamp standards and will cost about $10 million to fully implement in time for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

The scheme, approved by council Thursday, is intended to provide high-speed Internet access, a communications platform for security and emergency services and free limited Internet service to people on low incomes.

About $500,000 to be spent on feasibility studies and technical consultants will be added to the 2007 capital plan. The money is to be recovered from the company that secures the contract to build the network.

In approving the motion councillors were clear the system should maximize benefits to the non-profit sector and to people who might not otherwise have access to wireless services. Free or low-cost wireless Internet service for the city and community building applications of the network were among the stated goals of a council motion passed last year.

“We can see P3 models used all over the world that provide free networking that all the non-profits can then use,” said Coun. Heather Deal. She was particularly intrigued by the educational and cultural opportunities provided by a network that gives access to information and communication by anyone, anywhere in the city.

Museums, art galleries and institutions like Telus World of Science could use WiFi to guide people through interactive installations in parks or anywhere in the city, Deal said.

“We don’t want a system that is only accessible to those who pay into it,” Deal said. “I think free access is a very attractive opportunity.”

Free access to electronic communications has a powerful democratizing influence, too, she said. “In the U.K., they are doing online petitions and they go directly to the politicians,” Deal said. “That is proving extremely popular.”

Several U.S. cities are either offering or implementing WiFi systems with free service, according to a city report to council. Vail, Colo., offers a free lower-speed service subsidized by paid high-speed customers, a model also being considered by San Francisco. Most of the systems that offer free service defray costs through premium paid services or advertising targeted at free service users.

Deal admitted that free users might be exposed to advertising under such a system and although she is not completely comfortable with the idea, she is ready to consider the tradeoff.

Industry representatives were unanimous in their support for council’s initiative. Eight people spoke to council Thursday.

“What council approved in principle today were the perceived benefits of a [public-private partnership] and those benefits are the widest coverage possible and the most likelihood of creating the best city possible in terms of competitiveness and innovation.

“It also has the highest probability of not costing the taxpayers money,” said Judy Bishop, a market strategist for the B.C. technology industry. “The P3 model gives the city the ability to provide the widest possible benefits.”

Staff will report back to council on the logistics of the P3 before proceeding to consultation with the community and public organizations like TransLink, Vancouver Coastal Health, Terasen and BC Hydro, any or all of which could become anchor tenants of the system.

“Each city develops a model that works for its unique circumstances, based on its geographic, social and technology requirements,” said acting director of technology Shari Wallace. “What it looks like will be based on what makes our city unique.”

The city is likely to be an anchor tenant, using the network to reduce some of the $1.6 million it spends annually on emergency communications for police and fire departments, computer and digital assistant access for workers in the field, Blackberrys and cellular phones.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will use a wireless network as the backbone of its anti-terror security and emergency communications system.

City staff will explore potential security application for the 2010 Games in its consultation with the federal government.

– – –

HOW IT WORKS

WiFi is short for wireless fidelity.

– It uses low-power microwave radio to link one or more groups of users together, or to provide a link between two buildings.

– It can span several kilometres point to point but cannot be used where trees are in the way (water in the leaves absorb the radio signal). WiFi access points cover a radius of 100 metres using multiple channels to provide multi-user access to a central Internet access point.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Vaughn Palmer
Sun

VICTORIA – The B.C. Liberals are still struggling with the Vancouver convention centre expansion, amid reports that the over-budget project is headed for another huge jump in cost.

The waterfront project was launched as a $495-million undertaking back in the days when the Liberals said “yes” to several billion dollars worth of Olympics-related infrastructure.

Since then, it has undergone a steady escalation in costs, with taxpayers on the hook for virtually the entire tab.

The expansion was initially touted as a partnership with the private sector. But there were no private sector takers, investors knowing too well that convention centres are chronic money losers.

The expansion faced other challenges as well. Vancouver city council, dominated by the left-of-centre majority during the approval stages, insisted on some expensive additions.

Once construction got underway, there were the usual cost pressures — rising price of materials, shortages of skilled workers and construction cranes — and some unusual ones as well.

Driving piles through the shoreline mud to construct the waterfront platform for the building, crews ran into everything from deeply mired boulders and discarded concrete to the shell of a long-gone customs house.

For those on budget watch, the dollars just kept climbing. To $550 million … $565 million … and in September 2005 the project crossed the $600-million threshold.

Supposedly, that was to be the last of it. The then cabinet minister in charge, Olga Ilich, had worked in the development industry. “I come from that business,” she said. “I’ve been all over this file.” She was confident “we won’t be seeing any further increases.”

As of last September, project managers were still saying the project was “on budget” at $615 million. Mind, “on budget” meant 24 per cent and $120 million more than the initial estimate.

But there were rumblings that the expanded convention centre couldn’t possibly be delivered for that figure.

Project chair Ken Dobell, a senior adviser to Premier Gordon Campbell, all but confirmed another overrun in a November interview with The Vancouver Sun’s Jeff Lee.

“It’s big, it’s complicated, it’s challenging and it’s being built at the worst possible time in the marketplace,” Dobell said. “It is being built at what the construction industry would call the time of the perfect storm.”

Dobell confirmed he was preparing an update on the project for treasury board, the cabinet committee that vets the provincial budget.

Meaning the project was over budget? “I am not going to speculate about where we will be and what we will be reporting to government,” Dobell said. “That is something for the government to report after we’ve talked to them.”

Looking for specifics, reporter Lee went to the minister in charge. By then Ilich had moved to a new portfolio. The new minister, Stan Hagen, a 20-year political veteran, wasn’t inclined to make take-it-to-the-bank pronouncements before project managers had delivered their latest.

“I don’t think they know whether they will need more money until later,” Hagen said. “At this point they are trying to be mindful of the costs and they are trying to keep them under control.”

The new numbers were supposed to be in by early this year. Treasury board wants to put the revised estimate in the budget, slated for tabling in the legislature Feb. 20.

But Hagen is still looking for a firm number. “One number,” he emphasizes. Not a range. Not one more subject-to-revision forecast that will guarantee more negative stories like this one.

Perhaps the challenge is getting Dobell’s attention. At last report, the convention centre chair was also on hire as senior adviser to the premier, coastal forestry czar, finance committee chair on the Olympics and consultant to Vancouver city council.

The joke around government is that he’s had to hire someone to sit in meetings and remind him who he’s working for today.

But until the many-hatted Dobell and the folks at the convention centre project weigh in, the rumour mill is alive with guesses.

The $700-million mark has already been passed, I’m told, and $750 million is not out of the question.

With Ottawa nixing further contributions beyond an already-promised $222 million, with Tourism BC capped at $90 million and revenues maxed out at $30 million, the provincial government would probably have to cover the entire overrun.

Budget day will tell the full story. But I’m hearing that B.C. could be on the hook for as much as $400 million, almost double what provincial taxpayers were initially going to put into the Vancouver convention centre expansion.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Relocation raises new issues, says city planner

Jack Keating
Province

The Vancouver Whitecaps are proposing their new waterfront soccer stadium be built on a site that in-cludes the SeaBus Terminal.

“That raises a new issue,” said city planner Matt Shillito. “What does it do to the SeaBus terminal?

“It likely would have to be moved. So that’s a new issue that wasn’t a problem with the previous site.”

But Shillito said in a report that goes to council on Feb. 1 that the Whitecaps’ revised proposal “is very promising” for resolving the city’s concerns.

“This new site seems to have more potential than the last one did,” he said.

Planning staff recommended that council endorse the report. That would allow city staff to work with the Whitecaps and other landowners in the area to resolve concerns that would determine whether the 15,000-seat stadium would proceed to a separate rezoning process.

Bob Lenarduzzi of the Whitecaps believes the stadium is one step closer to reality for opening in time for the 2010 Olympics.

“We’re optimistic with the findings of the city staff’s report,” said Lenarduzzi.

Staff recommended approval of the project after the Whitecaps and the Vancouver Port Authority “established an agreement in principle which would enable the Whitecaps to pursue the use of an alternative site for the stadium located north of Waterfront Station to the west and north of the previous site.”

Council voted unanimously last July to endorse the stadium provided five issues were resolved.

Although the new site is only about 150 metres from its previous location, Shillito says it “could be very significant in terms of the five issues that council directed the Whitecaps to go away and try and resolve.”

THE ISSUES WERE:

– Providing an adequate street network.

– Resolving the risks associated with dangerous goods in adjacent rail yards.

– Reconfiguring the stadium to ensure a better fit with heritage Gastown.

– Resolving impacts on the livability of residential areas south of the rail lands.

– Resolving impacts on future port development.

“It has the potential to resolve those issues, I’m not saying it does resolve those issues,” said Shillito.

“Those are the same five concerns that we have,” said Scott Hawthorn of the Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition.

“We welcome any proposal they come back with that would address those five concerns.”

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

 

Couple with asteroid bearing their name has lodging out of this world

Scott Sutherland
Province

Jack and Alice Newton can see a long way from their retirement home perched high on the slopes of Anarchist Mountain above Osoyoos– millions of kilometres in fact.

Or make that millions of light-years.

When the Marks and Spencer retail chain pulled out of Canada in 1999, Jack Newton, manager of the British firm’s Victoria store, opted for retirement.

An internationally recognized amateur astronomer, he and his wife decided to sell their Vancouver Island home and head to where the skies were not cloudy and grey.

Aiming to combine a down-to-earth post-retirement income with his more celestial passions, Newton had a specific spot in mind to build a comfortable bed-and-breakfast with a unique home observatory.

They bought 4.5 hectares on a mountainside high above of Osoyoos because the desert air there is dry and the locale offers more hours of sunshine than virtually anywhere in the lower latitudes of Canada.

“We’re about 1,600 feet above the valley and 2,500 feet above sea level,” said Newton, now 64. “It’s a spectacular location.”

Their Observatory Bed & Breakfast motto: “We promise our guests the sun, the moon and stars and . . . we deliver.”

Operating between May and early October, the house sports two suites and a single “Moon Room” for guests. All have panoramic views over Lake Osoyoos, private baths, satellite TV and Internet connections.

Weather permitting — which is usually the case — a stay includes an introductory tour of the night skies through a 40-cm, computer-controlled, Meade telescope housed in the rooftop observatory.

Newton built the dome over the telescope himself, the “seventh or eighth” dome he’s built in a lifelong pursuit of astronomy that began as a boy in Winnipeg.

He’s recognized now as a pioneer in the field of astro-imaging, his photographs having graced the pages of National Geographic, Life, Newsweek, Photo Life and Astronomy magazines. Newton also has a half-dozen astronomy-related books to his credit and has led expeditions to far corners of the Earth to observe solar eclipses and comets.

And he’s the recipient of numerous awards, including the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal for his contributions to science.

While his wife does not quite share his astronomical bent, she is very supportive. Alice, whom he describes as a “workaholic,” handles the bookings for the B&B, which come from all over the world. “We’re running at about 99.9 per cent occupancy,” he said.

The couple share in a unique honour bestowed by the International Astronomical Union.

“They named an asteroid after us,” he said with pride. “It’s the first husband-and-wife asteroid name for an astronomer.”

But Newton said the B&B doesn’t only attract committed astronomy buffs.

“It’s not your hard-core observers,” he explained. “It’s the family who wants to have an interesting experience.”

Many arrive with no knowledge, having never even looked through a telescope before.

“Of course I love that because that gives me an opportunity to really blow their socks off. They get a tremendous awakening of the night sky, where we are in the universe and how fragile this little planet really is.”

– – –

IF YOU GO

On the web: For more information, visit www.jacknewton.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007

‘Cameras are now in places were cameras never used to be’

David Bauder
Province

NEW YORK – M ichael Richards in a West Hollywood comedy club and the authorities in Iraq who executed Saddam Hussein painfully learned that the prying eyes of television news can belong to anyone who carries a cellphone.

Saddam’s execution and Richards’ flameout illustrate the growing power of cellphone video as a news tool, not only to supplement stories but also to change them.

“It brought to a fore the sense that wow, this is a ubiquitous technology,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC News vice-president for digital media. “Cameras are now in places where cameras never used to be. That’s transformational.”

Iraqi authorities angrily searched for the people who recorded and distributed a video of Saddam’s execution, after the grainy footage emerged and spread quickly over the Internet and, in abridged form, on television.

It told a much different story from the government-authorized video issued about six hours after Saddam’s hanging. That depicted the former leader fitted first with a black scarf, then a thick noose. Separate pictures showed his body in a white shroud, with visible blood stains. The pictures had no audio.

“For the first time, I felt as a certainty that there was going to be bootlegged distribution of the official tape or a bootlegged version of the execution,” said Jonathan Klein, CNN U.S. president. “I had never had that level of certainty before. Somehow, you just knew.”

Within 12 hours, Klein was proven right.

TV networks had little use for pictures of Saddam falling through the trap door. They weren’t shown for taste reasons. But this video had audio, revealing angry exchanges and people loudly taunting Saddam in his final moments.

Without the cellphone video, viewers were left to assume that the execution was carried out professionally. Instead, the video revealed a chaotic scene that to many commentators symbolized everything that had gone wrong with the Iraq war and somehow made a brutal dictator a sympathetic figure.

An audience member’s cellphone caught the angry, racially offensive tirade unleashed by Richards at a Los Angeles comedy club in November. Repeated over and over on news networks, it became a major story that may effectively end Richards’ career.

Would it have even been a story without the video? If witnesses had described it later and Richards denied his actions, it could have been a he-said, she-said story with many people not believing the beloved Kramer would do such a thing. There’s a good chance the story would have gotten out in some form, however, because a friend of a CNN producer was in the audience and phoned in a tip.

“It probably would have been a story but it wouldn’t have been as big a story,” Klein said. “That was the smoking gun. It was so appalling to watch. It was like watching a train wreck.”

Cellphone video, despite having not nearly the picture quality of those produced by professional broadcasters, “does what pictures often do — it reveals the truth of the story,” Lukasiewicz said.

“Witnesses tend to argue,” he said. “What one person saw might be different from what another person saw. The picture doesn’t lie, but the picture isn’t the whole story.”

Television networks have taken viewer-contributed video ever since the advent of hand-held video cameras. Still, people aren’t likely to be carrying a video camera when news suddenly happens. They probably have their cellphones, however.

Video capability has been around since the camera phones were introduced in 2000, but didn’t gain significant acceptance in the United States until Sprint introduced a popular service in 2003.

An estimated 70 per cent of Americans carry cellphones. Nearly one-quarter of cellphone users — an estimated 55.5 million people — have phones with video capability. One-third of them claim to use their video feature at least once a week, according to analyses by InfoTrends and the Yankee Group.

News organizations became aware of the potential of cellphone video during the 2005 London subway bombing, when riders’ phones captured images conventional cameras didn’t, said David Rhodes, Fox News Channel vice-president of news.

Networks even use their own cellphone video in cases where reporters aren’t accompanied by cameramen. NBC’s first pictures of roof damage from inside the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina were taken by Brian Williams. Fox News aired cellphone video in the initial stages of covering New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle’s fatal plane crash.

Digital technology has the power to make everyone a news reporter, said David Westin, ABC News president.

“That has enormous potential for good and also has enormous potential for mischief,” he said. “The challenge for us is to get the good and weed out the mischief.”

Someone with a camera, an agenda and modest acting abilities can try to fool a news organization. Some people simply enjoy the sport of it. During coverage of a hurricane, one viewer sent NBC News a picture of supposed damage, when in fact it was a professionally taken photo from another storm, Lukasiewicz said.

It requires a careful vetting process unnecessary when the networks gather their own material, Westin said.

But it’s the future. Or, more accurately, the present. CNN in 2006 introduced technology to enable viewers to upload video taken on any device and easily send it to the network, where a staff is assigned to look over the material for newsworthiness.

Things like the Richards video, which stunned Klein when he first saw it.

“There was an intensity to it,” he said. “It became an ‘Oh, my God, we have to put that on the air’ kind of story. There will be many, many more of those to come in the future.”

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

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Businesses find appeals won last year didn’t end issue

Fiona Anderson
Sun

Now in its second year, TransLink’s parking tax is creating even more of a stir as taxpayers who fought their assessments last year — and won — are finding they may have to do it all over again.

Drive-in movie operator Jay Daulat was certain that he won his $15,000 parking tax battle last year. And if it wasn’t for a chance phone call this week, he wouldn’t have known the Twilight Drive-in that he operates in Langley was assessed again this year for the same amount as it was last year.

It turned out to be a glitch that could be settled with a phone call to TransLink, but Daulat had already contacted his lawyer.

“TransLink should understand, we small business people just can’t keep bearing these costs year after year after year,” Daulat said.

Many commercial property owners may find they are in the same boat, with property assessments this year not reflecting successful appeals. But not all will be able to resolve them as easily as Daulat was. TransLink’s director of communications Ken Hardie said some notices don’t reflect reductions last year because of a “systems problem” and others may have been decided too late to make it into the new roll. For those cases, a call to TransLink should solve the problem, Hardie said.

But some appeals, which Hardie estimates to number about 100, have not been taken into account because the B.C. Assessment Authority — hired by TransLink to prepare the roll — believes they are wrong. And those taxpayers will have to take their fight back to the assessment review panel.

“In the early days of the property assessment review panel, before any precedents were set, before people knew how the definitions would work in practical terms and before certain global issues went to the property assessment appeal board, some of the property assessment review panel decisions were incorrect,” Hardie said.

Delta freight forwarders Locher Evers International appears to fall into this category. Last year the company was assessed for more than 8,000 square metres of parking space. The company’s controller Peter Broerken appealed that assessment pointing out that some of the area included was actually storage and exempt from tax. The review panel agreed and reduced the area to 6,800 square metres. So when the assessment notice came this year, Broerken barely gave it a glance, being confident it would reflect the review panel’s decision. But not only did the new assessment ignore the reduction, it increased total parking area to over 9,000 square metres. So he’s appealed the assessment again.

Broerken wonders how many people like himself may think they don’t need to review the assessment notice and then end up missing the appeal deadline of Jan. 31.

Hardie encourages all businesses whose assessments do not reflect last year’s appeal to call TransLink to determine whether the matter can be corrected immediately, like Twilight’s situation, or whether they need to file another appeal.

The Park the Tax Coalition, a group of 23,000 businesses and organizations that have joined together to lobby against the tax, are also encouraging commercial property owners to review their tax notices and ensure that the area covered is appropriate.

Laura Jones, co-chair of the coalition and vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business urges business owners to ask TransLink for the photo that shows what space is included in the assessment.

The coalition wants the tax scrapped “but while it’s in place we have to first make sure that business owners aren’t paying one more penny than they have to,” Jones said.

TransLink raised between $16 million and $17 million last year after costs and expects to raise slightly more this year from the parking tax.

The money will be used to help fund TransLink’s $1.9 billion three-year plan to upgrade roads and transit.

PLAYING THE SLOTS, TRANSLINK STYLE

Last year was the first year for TransLink’s controversial parking tax, which taxes businesses in the Greater Vancouver Regional District on their parking areas. Here are some key numbers:

TOTAL AREA ASSESSED: 26 million square metres

RATE: $0.78 per square metre

TOTAL RAISED AFTER COSTS: $16 million to $17 million

NUMBER OF APPEALS TO REVIEW PANEL: Approximately 4,000

APPEALS THAT WENT FROM REVIEW PANEL TO ASSESSMENT APPEAL BOARD: 797

APPEAL BOARD DECISIONS TO DATE: 32

APPEALS DEALT WITH OTHER THAN BY DECISION AS OF SEPT. 30, 2006: 190

NUMBER OF APPEALS THAT WENT FROM ASSESSMENT APPEAL BOARD TO B.C. SUPREME COURT: Unknown

NUMBER OF DECISIONS OF B.C. SUPREME COURT TO DATE: 1

Sources: TransLink, Property Assessment Appeal Board and Burgess, Cawley, Sullivan & Associates

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Paediatric group signs two-year deal

John Bermingham
Province

The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre has bagged a number of big-name conventions for its expanded facility.

The U.S.-based Paediatric Academic Societies has become the first group to sign a multi-year deal for the new facility. PAS plans to stage its annual meetings here in 2010 and 2014.

Each meeting will attract 7,000 visitors to Vancouver and generate $10 million in business for the local economy.

Dave Gazley, Tourism Vancouver meeting and convention sales vice-president, called the deal a “signature piece of business” for the centre. He said a PAS member came to Vancouver in September to scout for locations and fell in love with the city.

The client was attracted by the integrated services being offered — hotels, flights and transportation — in a convenient package.

“We’ve got several groups that are definite now for the expanded centre,” Gazley said yesterday. “And we have a huge number more we are working on to confirm for the city.”

They are professional-group conventions, ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 delegates.

The convention centre expansion will triple the facility’s size to 500,000 square feet when it opens in late 2008.

Tourism Vancouver estimates that the city loses out on $150 million annually because of its limited size and Gazley said the bigger centre will put Vancouver in play for new business.

“It really helps us talk to more groups than we have in the past,” he said. “This will really put us into a new ballpark. It’s going to be one of the nicest convention centres in the world.”

The $615-million expansion is supporting 6,700 construction jobs, but is expected to attract $229 million in annual delegate spending, and create 7,500 new jobs.

According to Tourism B.C., there were 10 per cent fewer delegates to the VCEC last year, compared to 2005.

Figures show VCEC had 211,717 delegate days, down from 235,545 in 2005, and 250,000 in 2004.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

The first exclusive neighbourhood gondola in the country

Marke Andrews
Sun

For a cool $2.5 million, you can have a prime, 3,344-square-metre (35,996-square-foot) lot in Whistler’s new Kadenwood development, with exclusive gondola service to Whistler Creekside Village and to the base of the Creekside gondola.

Mind you, you’ll still have to pay to build your home on the lot.

If cash is a problem, you can buy a smaller lot in the Kadenwood neighbourhood for $1.5 million, and still have use of its gondola.

According to Intrawest Resort Development Group, which is partnering with Kadenwood Homeowners Association to build the $3.5-million Kadenwood gondola in time for the 2008-09 ski season, this will be the first exclusive neighbourhood gondola in the country.

Construction begins in the summer of 2008 and when completed, the gondola will have four cabins, each capable of holding eight people with their winter sports equipment, run 995 metres and connect the Kadenwood neighbourhood to Whistler Creekside Village. During the summer, the gondola can carry mountain bikes and baby strollers. It will be for the exclusive use of Kadenwood residents and their guests, however Whistler-Blackcomb, which will oversee daily operation of the gondola, may yet decide to extend its use to others.

“Nothing has been determined yet, but the door is open for other mountain uses for the gondola,” says Bryce Tupper, a development analyst with Intrawest. “Whistler-Blackcomb could use that gondola for some kind of on-mountain ski operations. If that happens, there would be cost-sharing with Whistler-Blackcomb and the Kadenwood Homeowners Association.”

It is yet to be determined if a pass will be required to ride the gondola, which has a 228-metre rise from Whistler Creekside to Kadenwood. Hours of operation also have to be worked out, although Tupper says the hours will likely be the same as the Creekside gondola.

“The Kadenwood Homeowners Association has the flexibility to change the hours and extend them if they want,” says Tupper. “Over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday, they could extend them so that people from the neighbourhood could come down to Creekside to have dinner.”

The Kadenwood development, divided into four stages, will house 60 home sites, ranging in size from half an acre to 11/2 acres. The 20 lots from the first phase have all been sold, and nine of the second phase lots are also sold.

Another 20 lots will be made available in the final two phases of the development.

Lot prices have risen about five per cent in the past year.

Kadenwood buyers come from Whistler, Vancouver, the U.S. and Europe. Some homes have already been built and a few people have moved into the neighbourhood.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

When an unhappy liver leads to fatigue, weight gain, poor concentration and mood swings, naturopathic tonics might cure your ills

Joanne Sasvari
Sun

Feeling a bit puffy? Lethargic? Pasty, cranky and dull? Could be because you spent the last two months turning your liver into foie gras.

Since we’re feeling a bit liverish ourselves after an overly festive season, we thought we’d skip the cocktails this week and start the New Year with a round of — yum — liver tonics.

Now, you probably don’t think about your liver much. It’s the dependable supporting actor in the cast of all your organs — hardworking and not terribly glamorous, but you’d sure notice if it wasn’t there.

The liver’s main job is to clean your blood. According to the Canadian Liver Foundation, it also fights off infections, regulates hormones and supplies your body with energy.

It does all this by processing everything you eat, drink or inhale.

And when your diet consists largely of cookies, canapes and lashings of liquor, the result is an overworked, fatty liver.

An unhappy liver can lead to fatigue, weight gain, mood swings and poor concentration.

It can take a toll on your looks, too, giving you brittle nails, dull hair and unhealthy-looking skin. In extreme cases, it can progress to serious liver diseases such as cirrhosis.

the solution

So what can you do about it? Skip the booze and try a liver tonic instead.

You can do this the naturopathic way.

You can find liver supplements that contain herbs such as milk thistle or St. Mary’s thistle, which is especially popular as a liver tonic in Europe. Also believed to be beneficial are wormwood, Oregon grape, dandelion, burdock, red clover and golden seal.

Or you can do this a more delicious way.

You can, for instance, whip up an Indian curry with turmeric. This pungent spice contains curcumin, which is antioxidant, anti-amyloid and anti-inflammatory and, reportedly, can do wonders for the liver. So can certain mushrooms, such as shiitakes, and cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale and bok choy.

You can also sip green tea, a strong antioxidant that helps digestion, or lemonade, which contains vitamin C, an antioxidant said to reduce toxic damage to the liver. You can also enjoy the lively, liver-friendly flavours of lemon balm, cayenne or ginger. (See above for an easy recipe for ginger tea.)

Or you can do as the Canadian Liver Foundation sensibly suggests, and follow a varied, low-fat diet, drink lots of water, cut down on alcohol and get plenty of exercise.

After all, in cultures that link emotions to physical health, the liver is the source of anger, resentment, irritability and bitterness.

Given that it’s also the body’s biggest internal organ and the only one that can regenerate itself, do you really want to aggravate it any further?

Joanne Sasvari is a freelance writer.

– – –

GINGER TEA

Ginger tea is believed to act as a tonic for your liver. It is also thought to improve digestion, relieve nausea and help ward off colds and flu.

1 piece fresh ginger root, about 2 inches (5 cm) long

4 cups (1 L) water

Honey and lemon to taste (optional)

Peel ginger root and slice it thinly.

In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add ginger. Cover and reduce heat; simmer tea for 15 to 20 minutes. Strain the tea. Add honey and lemon to taste.

HELP AT HAND

If you are seriously concerned about your (or a friend’s) liver health, skip the tonics and go see your doctor. Or check the Canadian Liver Foundation website at www.liver.ca for more information.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007