WEDNESDAY October 3, 1990 Vol. 43, No. 79 Castlegar, B.C. 4 Sections (A, B, C & D) 75 Cents Rebels suffer terrible triple Recycling plan put on hold Tonight: Periods of rain, Lows near Z. Thursday: Cloudy with o few showers. Highs near 15, The gftiook is tor morning showers and afternoon sunny py of cloud and sun Saturday. P 70 per cent tonight and 40 per cen s Friday and a mixture NW, astles-+ News d CosNews photo by Bu page Cl. By CasNews Staff Two major highway construc tion projects were officially opened with pomp and ceremony Saturday in the West Kootenay Wearing a pink hard hat and using gold-plated scissors, High ways Minister Rita Johnston of ficially opened the $13 million Cape Horn Bluffs reconstruction project on Highway 6 between Slocan and Silverton and later in the day travelled to Trail where she cut another ribbon to mark the opening of the $11 million West Trail approach The new section of Highway 22 bypasses the old Smelter Hill road which twisted and turned past the Cominco smelter At the Bluffs, assisted by Nelson-Creston MLA Howard Dirks and the son and daughter of the district road engineer who constructed the original Highway 6, Johnston paid tribute to the “courage .and skill’” of workers employed- on the Cape Horn project and thanked the people of the area for their support during the 14-month-long construction period give the Castlegar News her ag 11 Campbell ] jal from at the official penny of the cae Horn Bluffs section of She noted that the road_had been completely closed several times with a small passenger-only ferry operated for one three. month period. Answering concerns of placard carriers who expressed concern about the trucks which use the highway to haul wood chips Johnston said there would be * continuing program of im- provements."" Dirks placed the road opening in a historical perspective, recalling that ‘‘every politician” from the area down through the years had promised the important road project He paid tribute to the regionalization program of the provincial government of a few years ago and the highway task force set up under it for helping government decide on the Cape Horn project ‘They made it the-number one Priority from the Crowsnest through to Osoyoos,”’ the provin cial secretary said, singling out Elkford Mayor Jack White — a former Castlegar pharmacist — “tourists and local Highway 6. Greer, whose husband games, died a few weeks ago at age 102, declined to You never ask a lady how old she is,” Johnston later travelled to Trail where she opened the West Trail approach. More photos, she said. Pomp and ceremony mark highway openings for special praise as the task for ce’s chairman In Trail, a crowd of about 1,000 people watched a parade down the new road and then looked on as Johnston, assisted by seven-year-old Tammy Poznikoff of Rossland, snipped through a ribbon opening the highway Johnston said the Highways Ministry is not yet finished with road improvements in the West Kootenay, noting the possibility of a new bridge between Castlegar and Robson. However, that bridge is contingent on the approval of the Celgar pulp mill expansion and modernization Project : The opening of the West Trail approach caps planning for the project which began 19 years ago Earlier Saturday at the opening of the Cape Horn Bluffs, mayors from several Slocan Valley com munities lined up to praise the Project Slocan Mayor Dave Betts said residents and businesses would all benefit from the new road, not just chip trucks please see OPENINGS page A2 Moore says Socred nomination unlikely By SIM Editor Castlegar Mayor Audrey Moore skirted a direct answer earlier today when asked whether she would accept a nomination from the floor at tonight's meeting of Rossland-Trail Socreds who will select a candidate to square off against New Democrat Ed Conroy in the next provincial elec- tion. But Moore gave the impression such a scenario is unlikely “*I mean that's pretty esoteric and a lot of supposition,"’ said Moore, who carried the Socred banner in the 1986 election, losing to the NDP’s Chris D'Arcy by 671 votes. “*I have no reason to believe that’s going to happen,’’ the mayor said, referring to the possibility of a nomination from the floor at the meeting which she said she will ‘‘cer- “I have, as I’ve said, no indication whatsoever there is even the remotest possibflity that will take place.”” Walt Siemens, a Trail insurance broker and notary public, is the only BIRCH Districts By CasNews Staff The Regional District of Central Kootenay and three other regional districts have abandoned their lawsuit aimed at getting B.C. Hydro to pay property taxes on its Columbia River Treaty dams and other properties in the Kootenays which are exempt from taxation by a provincial cabinet or der A recent court decision that deter mined a municipality could not bring a court action based on an alleged breach of the Charter of Rights led lawyers for the four regional districts to recommend dropping the lawsuit, said Ken Wyllie, the RDCK’s director for Area J Wyllie said he is not aware of any other legal action being planned by the regional districts AUDREY MOORE : ‘pretty esoteric’ declared candidate for nomination Siemens faced D'Arcy in the 1983 election, losing to the New Democrat by 3,000 votes. D’Arcy, who has the Socred represented Rossland-Trail for 18 years, was dumped by local New Democrats in favor of Conroy last May. Sid Crockett, acting president of the Rossland-Trail Social Credit Con- stituency Association, said Tuesday Editorial, page A4& tonight’s nominating meeting ‘‘could be interesting’ despite the lack of competition to Siemens. “You never know what’s going to take place,’ Crockett said Provincial Secretary Howard Dirks, the MLA for Nelson-Creston, will be the guest speaker at the meeting which gets underway at 7 p.m Moore said she didn’t seek the this time because she thinks the election call will come in the spring and she believes nominating meetings shouldn't be held too far ahead of the vote “You lose all that energy and all of please see MOORE page A2 nomination drop lawsuit The only other avenue the Tegional district. boards can now take to change what they see as an unfair situation is to lobby the provincial government for changes to taxation policies, he said In an earlier interview, George Cady, chairman of the RDCK board, said the legal action was based cn Sec tion 15 of the Charter which states that all people should be treated equally. The regional districts said it is unfair that Hydro doesn’t pay taxes while other businesses and property ow ers in the same areas do. Last Hydro began paying grants in lieu of taxes to local gover nménts based on the amount of power each of the utility’s dams produces, or in the case of the Hugh Keenleyside year, dam near Castlegar, produce power The RDCK turned down the $155,000 Hydro would have paid the regional district last year because ac ceptance of the grant might have jeopardized the lawsuit, Cady said Cady said last year after the grants were announced, that if Hydro paid its full’share of property taxes on its facilities, the RDCK would receive about $4 million a from the utility Wyllie said the RDCK will likely begin accepting the yearly grants now that the court action has been drop: ped The other three regional districts involved in the suit were Kootenay Boundary, East Kootenay and Columbia-Shuswap its potential to year Youths under scrutiny in vandalism incident By CasNews Staff Vandalism to the Crescent Valley business of Bob Lerch, a former co chairman of the now-disbanded Coalition for Information on the Pulp Mill Expansion, appears to be completely unrelated to Lerch’s work concerning Celgar Pulp Co.'s proposal to expand and modernize its Castlegar pulp mill, Nelson RCMP said Three Netson youths are under in vestigation in connection with the in cident in August that left four vehicles at Lerch’s business, Organic Mechanix, with about $1,000 in damage, police said Lerch said Tuesday he has known for some time that the RCMP had the youths under investigation. He said he has always indicated he didn’t want to believe the vandalism had anything to do with his work with CIPE But he said the “strange connec tion" between the vandalism and his chairmanship of CIPE was hard to ignore. A busload of Celgar suppor ters from Castlegar allegedly pulled up-in-front-of-erch's-business-and took photographs the night before the vandalism occurred Dale Donaldson, spokesman for the Castlegar-based Citizens for a Clean Celgar Modernization, a com munity group which supports the Celgar project, said today he is pleased the issue is being cleared up by the RCMP Rumors that people from Castlegar were responsible for the vandalism have been flying since Lerch reported the damage to the media, Donaldson said “I never thought even from the start that Bob thought it was any of us."’ Donaldson said 2 Lerch said he was surprised stories in the Province newspaper Sunday played up the vandalism incident sin ce he made it clear to the reporter that the police were investigating the in cident and had suspects in mind Group eyes blockades as last resort ByC Staff Writer TTE SANDECKI Members of a Slocan Valley group say they will use blockades as a last resort to stop logging activity around their watershed if the Ministry of Forests and Slocan Forest Products Ltd. do not wait for the provincial om- budsman’s report on watershed management “‘Just because something is under review doesn’t mean everything stops,” The Hasty Creek IWMP is undergoing final revisions and Slocan Forest Products can submit prop Is for logging the area when the plan is completed, Arnett said The Hasty Creek watershed is within the company’s cut ting rights. of the Red A say they are willing to stop SFP from building a lonsing * Arnett said. hope the ombudsman wil] recommend inclusion of a method to resolve disputes in the water management However, even if the ombudsman’s office makes plans David Greer, the ombudsman officer in charge of the investigation into valley |W MPs, told the Castlegar News road into the Hasty Creek watershed area south of Silver- \ the study is still in the early stages and his office is in the ton while-they wait for ombudsman Stephen Owen to issue a report on integrated watershed management plans (IWMPs) But Ken Arnett, Arrow forest district manager, said Monday his ministry doesn’t see a need to wait for the strictly a matter of recommen- report since it will be ‘‘ dations.” Process of identifying the facts and issues in the matter When the investigation is completed, the ombud. sman's office can mediate a settlement of the dispute, seek outside make for said. of the Red M: change of determine that no changes are needed, Greer A say they r i it can’t order them to be acted upon, Greer said. Arnett said he finds it desire for participate the Hasty Creek IWMP. The management plan includes provision for solving a water problem if any should occur rather than having a group of people sit around a table and argue over who caused the problem, Arnett said But Jim Rutkowsky, chairman of the association's watershed committee, said participating in technical com mittee discussions would only give validity to a process his “disappointing” group is willing to blockade a logging company over a dispute-resolution process while refusing to discussions with a technical committee for group feels is seriously flawed. The process for resolving disputes the Hasty Creek watershed users are seeking would allow negotiation on how the IWMP will work, not just how a water problem will be solved or blame determined, Rutkowsky said that the The association's goal is to create a process the group feels will protect its water, he said Watershed users in the Hasty Creek area first contac ted the ombudsman about two years ago when they were seeking an [WMP for the watershed, Rukowsky said. Following an water management plan was established for the watershed but residents of the area then learned people in the by the bi . a Springer Creek area were unhappy with their management plan, he said. Springer Creek is the only other watershed in the valley with an WMP. please see BLOCK ADES page A2