Library. z Bldgs., 501 Belleville st C: varlia Victoria, veVv 1x4 Be Ceo Vol. 42, No, 10 astles 60 Cents ecdiSia. WEATHERCAST Tonight; mainly clear skies. Thur sday: sunny and cold, Outlook is for sunshine and cold conditions remaining through to the weekend Lows will be -20 tonight or 18 for Thursday precipitation #410 per fonightend 0 percent Thur 3 Sections (A B& C) WIPED OUT... Fire Commissioner Wilf Lorman of Cranbrook (top photo, back to camera) discusses the Sunday morning blaze which gutted a home on Ridgewood Drive in Castlegar. The fire also destroyed a Ford truck (below) parked outside the front of the home. CosNewsPhaios by Sunon Sigh INSIDE Castlegar library page A2 Lottery numbers The winning numbers drawn Tuesday in The Pick lottery were 4, 28, 29,31, 35, 37, 46 and 51. Cabinet shuffle page A& Ski for Light page B2 By CasNews Staff Fire police and ambulance personnel were called to the scene of a house fire on Ridgewood Drive in Castlegar early Sunday morning. Sixteen firefighters arrived at the residence of Brian Lorne Fietz at 1707 Ridgewood Drive at 12:36 a.m Sunday after receiving a call from off-duty auxiliary RCMP Const Keith Voykin Const. James Hardy who were on shift when the pair reported the blaze at 12:32 a.m No one was home at the time of the and there were no_ injuries Firefighters had the under control within minutes of arriving The residence and its contents suf fered approximately $82,000 in dam. the blaze. A pickup truck parked near the house crews, and fire blaze ages as a result of continued on page A2 Ruptured tanker sent back to Trail By CHERYL CALDERBA\ A patched tanker liquid sulphur dioxide arrived back at Cominco operations in Trail Monday night after the car leaked some of the hazardous chemical in’ Bonners Fer car carrying ry, Idaho, Saturday morning The passed through communities of Creston, Nelson and rail car the Castlegar before arriving in Trail The damaged car passed through 7 and 7:30 p.m chief Castlegar between Monday night, Castlegar fire Bob Mann said Mann said he before the car came through was given 24 hours notice Cominco worker killed By CasNews Staff A 28-year-old Rossland man em ployed as an ironworker at Cominco fell 21 metres to his death Tuesday at the company's construction site for its lead plant modernization project Exact circumstances surrounding the accident were not available at press time and the victim's name has teleased pending notifica f next-of-kin in Eastern Canada and putside the country, Trail RCMP accident occurred about 3:30 The the and taken to Trail Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead, the RCMP said Trail RCMP. in conjunction with the provincial cordner’s office. the Worker's sCompensation—Board—and are conducting an investi gation jnto the rounding the fall p.m. Tuesday worker was re moved from site Cominco. circumstances sur Castlegar‘and CPR and Cominco of ficials kept in contact with him every hour Richard Fish community and public incident at about 50 kilometres Canada-U.S. border occurred at Saturday. The sulphur dioxide was being shipped to Cominco American in Spokane. The chemical has two primary uses pulp and Cominco’s senior relations of ficer. said” the Bonners Ferry south of located the 7:30 a.m for bleaching in the paper industry and to remove chlor ine from municipal waste water The dioxide Ferry kilometres leaking car released sulphur fumes in downtown Bonners The car was moved about 6.5 out’ of town when the which is Teased to About S00 resi Union Pacific car Coritincé, ruptured dents evacuated from their homes and businesses. car developed a hole in its side were Fish said the The centi about five before it had reached diameter hole metres in patched up Fish said Cominco won't know how much of the chemical leaked out until the sulphur dioxide is emptied from the car 80 to 90 per cent of the chemical is still in the car was The company estimates that Sulphur dioxide is easily detectable in very low concentrations “A small amount is quite irritating to the nose, throat and eyes."’ Fish Although it takes a high con centration of the chemical to be im mediately fatal, sulphur certainly a hazardous Fish said He said Cominco ships but doesn't said dioxide is commodity quite a bit’ of sulphur dioxide talk about actual production volume because of business He did say that Cominco has been shipping the chemical since 1953 and this is the first such incident that has Cominco ships the chemi considerations occurred cal to. the U.S. and Western Canada When the incident occurred at Bonners Ferry, Union Pacific, the carrier of the car; set up a command post there team from Cominco arrived at 2 p.m ish noted that the team from Com inco were the only officials that had the equipment for detecting sulphur dioxide in.the area. “They went around town and checked for $02."" Fish said. The team didn’t find any significant con centrations so residents were allowed to return to their homes, he said The Cominco response team mem were the officials capable of patching up the. tanker car. Cominco erews applied a T-bar patch with layers of epoxy. fubber and steel which fits over the hole and is tightened with a nut Normally, when a leak like this occurs, another tanker car is brought in to siphon out the chemical. Fish said another car was brought in but when crews tried to siphon out the sulphur dioxide it that the pipes from the top of the: car which attached to the necessary the chemical, customers in An emergency response bers also only was discovered are valves to remove were missing It was not a light move the car-after this (accident) had happened," Fish said He said that Cominco, and officials the U.S. Environmental Pro- Agency Pacific evaluated the condition of the car. A technician from Trail with ultrasonic testing equipment also verified that the car was safe to move Officials decided the safest thing to do was get the car back to Cominco where there was equipment available toempty the car Fish said there about bringing the car back to Trail decision to from tection and Union was some concern - continued on poge A2 By CasNews s and News Services Celgar Pulp Co letters to the in Castlegar has sent federal govern ment to comply with the govern ment’s request that all Canadian pulp mills submit data on pulp mill effluent and .dioxin levels, Celgar's technical manager said Tuesday “AIL the mills in Canada had to submit whatever data they had."’ Vic Morandini told the Castlegar News “We have stibmitted some dita The deadline for the federal was Jan. 30. Morandini said-Celgar has already conducted studies of- dioxiti around the mill but would not discuss the results of the studies “We've got numbers but they're confidential," he "Nobody's going to release their numbers. complying with government's request levels said Morandini__said_‘Celgar doesn't have a lot of data on dioxins because the cost of dioxin-level “horrendous’’ and there are too few labs available for testing dioxins testing is He said Celgar's dioxin levels are probably typical of other mills in the province. However, Morandini added that it's difficult to pinpoint what the typical levels are because pulp mills Stone do not share information with each other We're body else probabl | of any don't know andini said, “A but we what typical is."" M lot of the that in numbers, mills do not divulge ation to cach other Dioxin is a of 75 chemical the scientific name dibenzo-p-dioxins duced in the combus used to make bleached k The specific dioxin— produ chtorine the goes by pulp-mitts-thar~use the tetrachtorodi or 2:3-7-8 TCDD Tor bleaching process lengthy name 2.3.78 benve-p dioxin short Environmental toxicologist Francis Eaw-of Simon Fraser University-catts dioxins “the most toxic man-made chemical known Dioxins have tumors been linked to birth defects and immune-system damage in-animals Environment Canada ‘cannot establish a link between human ex posure to dioxins and long-term ef. fects. such as cancer, coronary-dis- ease_or abnormal reproduction."* cancers However has said it conclusive continued on page A2 Corp. ‘delighted’ By CHERYL CALDERBANK Consolidated Bathurst Inc. by Container Corp. of Chicago have _little effect on Castlegar's Celgar Pulp Co. Stone Container's chief financial and The purchase of Stone will planning officer said Tuesday Arnold Brookstone said in a tele phone interview from Chicago that the mill will continue to operate as it has under the part ownership of Con soldiated-Bathurst-Ine Stone Container Corp. will own 25 per cent of the mill, Power Corp. of Canada will continue to hold another 25 per cent interest while the Chi nese government will retain SO per cent interest in the mill Power Corp. announced last week it and its two=partners control of Consolidated-Bathurst to Stone Container Corp. for $2.6; bill are selling ion Brookstone said any effect the sale might have on the Castlegar mill would be positive “If we as new partners and exist ing partners determine improve ments shoiild take place he said “We are the new guys on the block and are delighted to become part owners of a fine facility and get into the business of this facility He said Stone. Container Corp it would has no plans to sell its interest in the mill Management at the wit stay the same, he added. Elsewhere an official of Wit the Canadian Paperworkers Union says Stoné Container has a bad record in dealing with labor They're (Stone) notoriously anti union and- demand (wage and bene: fit) concessions even when they're making record profits."’ said Keith Neman director in Montreal the union's research But Brookstone Stone Con tainer Corp. is virtually all unionized We have been in the business 1926 and we said consider ourselves to be anti-union,"’ he said We believe we have good relations since do not with the people we work with and for Bob Brommeland, Pulp and Paper and Woodworkers of Canada Local 1 president, had no cc new part-owners of the milt At the moment we find out what the said. “We don’t about them Stone mment on the are company know ver Container is the world's largest producer of unbleached con— and th products tainerboard and kraft paper largest converter of those into corrugated containers and paper bags Founded in 1926, the product line includes containerboard kraft paper per bags ar ks, market pulp newsprini packaging. pack aging machinery systems, and hatur al gas. All of its current facilities’ are located in the United States company’s corrugated containers flexit exible Cold By CasNews Staff Temperatures went from one other between as Castle extreme to the Monday and Tuesday gar experienced a dramatic tem perature swing along with other parts of the west A mild flow Monday brought up to 8.4 ¢ record of 6 C set in 1967, said Ron Lakeman of the Castlegar weather office an outbreak of rushing resulting the of Pacific air on temperatures old same breaking the on the day But on Tuesday cold arctic —air down from the in. the mercury level came Yukon sudden drop-in hits town snap Castlegar. one of the spots in the province at -2C on 13 € overnight, missing the record of 20 € set in} 1969. The temper still at -13 C_ this warmer Tuesday dipped down to ature was morning could be a However, tonight redord-breaker as lows dip to -20 ¢ record for tonight is 1972 The stay at least until the end of the are ex The 16 C set in pected to cold snap is expected to week Lakeman said it's not unusual to see cold days like these at this continued on a2