me

Under arrest: RCMP haul off to jail one of the Hasty Creek protesters after they refused to heed a court
injunction requiring them to give up their blockade of a Slocan Forest Products logging road near Silverton.

Protesters arrested

@ RCMP remove Hasty
Creek water users and
supporters from road
blockade near Silverton

Thomas Bink
NEWS REPORTER

RCMP arrested about 150
members of the Slocan Valley Wa-
tershed Alliance on Friday for at-
tempting to stop Slocan Forest
Products Ltd. from building a log-
ging road at Hasty Creek.

The arrests end a 19-day
standoff between the group of res-
idents which rely on the creek as
a water supply, and SFP, which
plans to log about 118 hectares in
the Red Mountain Road area near
Silverton, about 110 kilometres
northeast of Castlegar.

The alliance wants more public
participation i in the proposed log-
ging process and more protection

watershed.

Ri
group had requested fur-
ther negotiations with SFP and

SFP won over the alliance late
last week, to the protesters Tues-
day morning, ordering them to
clear the area and permit the
road construction. The protesters
refused to move, and were arrest-
ed Friday on the charge of dis-
obeying a court order.

Hasty Creek resident Richard
Burton said the arrests will not
end the group's efforts to stop SFP
logging in the area.

“This is not the end,” Burton

said to the group prior to the
RCMP’s arrival. “This is not the
last day. This i is part of a contin-
uing process.”
However, protest organizers
would not elaborate on plans for
future action. The group was in-
formed about the arrest action on
Thursday morning.

At 9:15 a.m. Friday, about 10
RCMP officers in two vans ar-
rived at the site. Many protesters,
ina sigttof defiance, sat in lines of

pasar protester, many of whom

had to.be carried, was pho-

tographed and placed in a police
van. They were then taken to a
holding cell in New Denver,
where they were to be released on.
their own recognizance.

Protesters not wishing to be ar-
rested were free to leave the site.

There was no resistance to the
RCMP by. the protesters.

“Our issue is not with the
police,” Burton said.

Dods, who was at the site while
the arrests were taking place,
called the whole incident “unfor-
tunate.”

“I'm very sorry it had to
come down to this,” Dods said.

He added that construction
on the road was to begin once
all the protesters were removed
from the area.

Hasty Creek resident Bruce
Cottingham called the protest

stand.

basis for this protest is
that there is po dispute
‘a. id.

Saturday

SEPTEMBER 7, 1991

eon
@ 2 Sections, A & B

60SECONDS
lO NEWS BRIEF |

Downtown grocery
store to reopen

A local businessman is Planning to
open an independently owned super-
market soon in the old SuperValu gro-
cery building on Columbia Avenue.

The businessman, who refused to
disclose his name, confirmed Tuesday
that he has leased the building from ~
Ferraro's Ltd., which runs local Super-
Valu stores, and will open the store in
about two months.

He said he plans to clean up the
building, which has been boarded up
for about two years, with a new paint
job. He said the store will not be asso-
ciated with any major grocery store
chains.

New columnists

The . Castlegar
News weicomes
two new colum-
nists this week,
one of them a fa-
miliar face to

weekly columnist sharing his thoughts
and opinions on local issues every Sat-
urday.

Aso jolriog The News is Hubert
Beyer who . to eee ee
affairs from the
Gallery in Victoria where he has corer
ated Community Press, a service ded-

Beyer's column will ‘appear every
Wednesday and Saturday.
page A6
@ SPORTS
Kevin Cheveldave