. 2. a2 Castlégar News November 27, 1988 HERITAGE HELPERS . . - Ald. Lawrence Chernoff (left) and Mayor Audrey Moore (second from right) were on hand Thursday to recog- nize those who have contributed to the-Castlegar and District Desaulniers, Heritage Society. Among those honored were: (from left) Verna recognizes work By CasNews Staff Nine Castlegar residents were recognized for their work with the Castlegar and District Heritage Society at a special dinner Thursday night. Mayor Audrey Moore presented the nine with certificates and gave her thanks for their support of the society's two major projects: Zuck erberg Island Heritage Park and the former CP Rail station. The nine include Art Koch, Alex Lutz, Doris Sweeney, Ralph Desaul- niers, Gordie Hill, John Charters, Verna Keraiff, Sherrel Koreen and Bunny Charters. As well, the society's life members were honored. They include Marjorie West, Bill Sloan, Gordie Hill, Nancy Felde and Betty Price. John Charters recounted the his. tory of the heritage society which was formed in June, but originated as the heritage committee. Local man passes away Peter N. Repin of Castlegar passed away Nov. 23 at the age of 82 years. Mr. Repin was born May 15, 1906 at Arran, Sask., and came to B.C. in 1912 with his parents, Kathy and Nick Repin who settled in Brilliant Mr. Repin lived in the Castlegar area all of his life, living at Pass Creek from 1943 until 1971 when he movec to Raspberry. In 1986, he moved to Mt. St Francis, where he lived for a short time before moving to the Extended Care Unit of the Castlegar Hospital. During his life he worked in logging, construction and as a carpenter. He enjoyed woodworking and reading. Mr. Repin is survived by four sons: Tim of Castlegar, Pete of Kelowna, Mike of Castlegar and Joe of Surrey; five grandchildren, three great grandchildren; and one brother, Nick of Willowhaven. He is predeceased by his wife, Mary in 1976, one daughter, two brothers and one sister. Funeral service was held at the Castlegar Funeral Chapel on Friday and Saturday with burial in the Brilliant Cemetery Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Castlegar Funeral Chapel Keraiff, Gordie Hill, Sherrel Koreen, Alex Lutz, Bunny Charters, Doris Sweeney and John Charters. Missing were Art Koch and Ralph Cosews Photo By BONNE MORGAN Staff Writer The Castlegar school board has hired a provincial evaluation team to take an objective look at its school system. After almost one week of close scrutiny of Castlegar schools the district review team will determine whether the board is meeting its goals. The three-member team comprised of retired school board officials went to the schools and interviewed students, teachers and administrators. As well, it talked to parents and community members involved in the schools about their concerns. It took the board about two years to make the decision to set aside $8,000 to pay for the review, but the actual cost is estimated to be closer to $5,000. “It was debated at some considerable length because it seems we are always stretching money,” Superintendent of schools Terry Wayling explained. He said it is difficult for someone tied to the schools and even the community to make an objective opinion about them. Wayling thinks people may be more honest with someone “who doesn't have a bias and won't be here in the town tomorrow morning. “We've seen that the district is in pretty good shape,” said Don Smith, chairman of the review team. The review has found that the relationships with students and teaching staff are “pretty healthy.” “It's a little awkward with (teachers’) contract negotiations and the edict that they almost not be involved in any committee Smith said. On the positive side it has found that the school buildings themselves are in good shape and have been well maintained. Smith said the students would like to see more programs but are generally positive about the system. Parents comments were “mixed” with the Schools evaluated “usual complaints” about school programs that are common throughout the province, Smith said. He added there were some concerns about school overcrowding, particularly in the elementary and kindergarten classes. He noted a “design decision” made by the ministry of education a number of years ago which made some of the newer classrooms smaller, makes the situation worse. One of the board’s goals is to develop a budget that will reflect its goal, but Smith says the review won't be telling the board how to spend its money. “We would be stretching our right to be saying how the budget is being broken down,” he said. Another goal is to provide a “comfgrtable, safe and positive working and learning environment.” “We know some of the situations are less than optimum now and they are trying to arrest that with building programs,” he said. ~ The review also examined school curricula and student performance. Smith said Selkirk College students who had graduated from Stanley Hum- phries secondary school found they didn’t do enough writing when in high school. Smith said Castlegar has “embarked on a very ambitious program” with special education students being integrated into many regular classrooms. “We're going to have to make some judgments as to whether its working or whether it may be done better another way,” said Smith. He said integration of special needs students into a classroom tends to make other classrooms larger and puts a strain on the teacher. It is unknown whether the report on the review, expected to be completed in December, will be made public. “Some of them may be fairly substantial in terms of what needs to happen,” said Smith. Wayling said he hopes the evaluation will come out in the open, but itwill depend on the severity of the recommendations and whether specific people are mentioned. | passed away Nov. 25 at the age of 55. Poznikoff dies Poznikoff will be held at the Castle gar Funeral Chapel b at 7 p.m Vera Poznikoff of Pass Creek Mrs. Poznikoff was born July 15, day City studies radar set urchase By CasNews Staff . Castlegar council wants to meet with the head of the Nelson RCMP subdivision to iron out concerns about new radar equipment for the city. Ald. Bob MacBain, chairman of the “protective services committee, prop- osed in September that the city purchase a new mobile radar set for the local RCMP at a cost of nearly $3,000. MacBain said the radar would help curb traffic offenders. However, the proposal was tabled while the city investigated if the RCMP would purchase the radar set instead. But in a letter to council, RCMP Superintendent James Druchet of the Nelson subdivision said the RCMP does not intend to buy another radar set. “Castlegar detachment currently has three pieces of radar equipment, all supplied by the RCMP, one of which is a mobile unit,” Druchet said. “It is my view, in comparison with other detachments in the Nelson subdivision, Castlegar is considered adequately equipped.” However, Druchet pointed out that other municipalities have pur- chased additional radar sets, and suggested if Castlegar decides to buy such a set, it would be up to the Castlegar RCMP detachment com- mander to determine how it is used. Council expressed concern in- September \that the new radar equipment may be used by the RCMP's Highway Patrol, which pri- marily serves the outlying areas. But Druchet said the new set woujdn't be used by the Highway RCMP. As well, he said the city was apparently misinformed about the Highway Patrol's use of the present radar sets. “The current radar equipment at Caastlegar detachment is not used by the area Highway Patrol as that unit in particular is fully equipped for its enforcement needs,” Druchet said. He added that the present Castle- gar radar equipment is not used “mostly out of the city,” as council indicated in September. Still, Druchet said additional radar equipment would help RCMP traffic enforcement. “There is no doubt with additional resources the overall traffic enforce- ment program within the City of Castlegar would be enhanced (with additional equipment),” he said. MacBain stressed that the idea for a new radar set was his, not the RCMP's. “This was not pressure from the local RCMP detachment. I myself presented it to (the) protective ser- vices (committee),” he said. MacBain said he still has questions about the new radar set and sug- gested council set up a meeting with Druchet. KSCU contract talks continue By CasNews Staff United Steelworkers of America representative Ron Schmidt said Friday it is “too early” to bring in a mediator to help negotiate a first contract for employees of Kootenay Savings Credit Union. Credit union officials earlier this week proposed hiring private media- tor Vince Ready to speed up contract talks with the union which is seeking a contract for 70 employees in six Kootenay Savings branches includ- ing Castlegar. “I certainly don't have a problem with Vince Ready as a mediator,” Schmidt said. But, he added, “My experience is, when you get dead- locked, mediation helps. The problem here is not us being deadlocked. We're having trouble getting to the bargaining table.” The two sides are back at the table this weekend after a seven-week lapse. Solving the delay is apparently what credit union administrators had in mind when proposing a mediator. “As the union would only meet on Police file g Tues and continuing Castlegar RCMP have charged Pat 1933 at Pass Creek. She grew up and married Alex W. Poznikoff there on May 12, 1951. She lived at Pass Creek all her life. She enjoyed gar dening, knitting, crocheting, video games and her family She is survived by her husband, Alex W. Poznikoff of Pass Creek; three sons, Roy of Rossland, Paul of Houston, B.C., and Gary of Pass Creek; two daughters, Christine Rice of Prince George and Sarah Poznikoff of Pass Creek; seven grandchildren; three sisters, Nellie Bonderoff of Pass Creek, Winnie Poznikoff of Nel son and Helen Walker of Prince George Funeral services for the late Mrs. Wednesday at 10 a.m. with burial at 1 p.m. at the Pass Creek cemetery Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Castlegar Fun eral Chapel. Suggestions rewarded é By CasNews Staff City of Castlegar employees who come up with innovative suggestions that will save the municipality money or make things more efficient will be rewarded, thanks to a new employee suggestion award program Brodie Taylor of Robson with driving too fast for road conditions after he drove his 1978 Plymouth off Broad- water Road and struck a power pole near the ferry ramp Wednesday. Taylor, who suffered minor whip- lash in the accident, was travelling southbound on Broadwater Road and was checking his rear-view mirror when he drove off the roadway about 11:45 a.m. the RCMP reported. * 8 @ Castlegar RCMP reported that a person or persons smashed the front windshields of five police vehicles with an unknown object sometime Tuesday. Damage to the vehicles, which were parked behind the detachment, is estimated at $1,500. The investi- FERRY continued from front page Dalton said. Castlegar Ald. Patti Richards said the council did not file an affidavit but instead submitted minutes of council meetings on the ferry closure. She said council could not file a sworn affidavit but council members were free to submit their own. “Council as a whole, could not sign a sworn affidavit,” she told the Castlegar News. “I don’t think our community as a whole supports the ferry.” Despite not receiving an endorse ment from city council in the form of an affidavit, Dalton is optimistic the committee will succeed in its chall. enge to have the ferry re-opened. He said it's even more important to get the ferry going again because the snow has started to fall “We've got many more people driving around the bridge since the ferry was closed,” he said. “Now that there is snow on the roads, the traffic hazards are increasing with more vehicles travelling the road between Robson and Castlegar instead of using the ferry.” Dalton said he knows exactly how to present his argument to the Supreme Court. “Fhe issue to be decided“ is whether the closing of the ferry is in law a closing of a portion of a highway,” he said. He will try to prove the ferry is an integral part of the provincial highways system and then try to prove that the ferry was closed down without proper notifica tion as specified in the Highways Act. “If (the case) is found in favor on that point we are asking that the ferry be immediately re-started on exactly the same terms as applied on April 25,” he said, adding if the challenge fails the group may appeal, although that decision has not been made. “Whether we are successful or not, we will continue to persue the gov. ernment to try and bring the issue to a resolution satisfactory to the gov ernment and the committee,” Dalton said. STATION continued trom front page He said the work on the interior of gation is g. Anyone with information on the vandalism should contact Staff Sgt. Jack Keddy at the Castlegar RCMP detachment. Coordinator needed By CasNews Staff The City of Castlegar is looking for a new municipal emergency program the building is “es ially a labor. intensive operation.” Charters said he is pleased with Felde’s plans for the exterior “I think that Nancy has captured the spirit of the original station,” he said. “If carried through in that spirit, it will enhance tremendously the image of this town.” He said the plans emphasize both the “functional and esthetic” aspects of the building. Frank Steven, who served in the volunteer position for four years, has resigned and left the area. Mayor Audrey Moore said Leo Somers, the deputy coordinator, will be acting coordinator until someone is found to fill the position sometime in the new year. Moore noted that Somers turned down an offer to take the coor- dinator’s job on a permanent basis. and kends, it became evident that bargaining would take longer than had been foreseen,” a news release from the credit union states. “Although there is no impasse in bargaining, Kootenay Savings has proposed the mediator in the hope of reaching a speedy settlement.” However, Schmidt blamed the lack of meetings on credit union negotia- tors who he said are trying to “frustrate” the negotiating process. Although both sides have agreed to some issues, Schmidt the two sides are “not close at all” to reaching an agreement. At a meeting Nov. 20, 100 per cent of KSCU employees in Castlegar, Kaslo, Salmo, Fruitvale and Waneta and 91 per cent of employees in the Trail branch voted to strike if nec- essary, Schmidt said. However, the employees have not served strike notice on the credit union, he added. Employees at the Nakusp, South Slocan and New Denver branches chose earlier this year not to join the union, Schmidt said. Molly Repin dies Molly Repin of Castlegar passed away Nov. 25 at the age of 80. Mrs. Repin was born Nov. 27, 1907 in Saskatchewan and moved to Cal- gary in 1939 and to Salmo in 1940. In 1965, she moved to Raspberry Village where she lived for a short time and then to Columbia View Lodge and finally to the Extended Care Unit of Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Rossland. She enjoyed gardening, needlework, sewing and her grandchildren. She is survived by two daughters and sons-in-law, Elizabeth and Harry DeVries, and Ann and John McCrea, all of Castlegar; one son, Peter Repin of Vancouver; six grandchildren, six great-grandchildren; two brothers, Alex Nichvolodov of Kelowna and Walter Nichvolodov of Grand Forks. Funeral service will be held at the Castlegar Funeral Chapel on Monday beginning at 7 p.m. and continuing Tuesday at 10 a.m. with burial in the Brilliant cemetery at 1 p.m. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Castlegar Fu- neral Chapel. CENTRE continued from front poge Chernoff defended the $3,500 cost, saying: “We're not opening the floodgates.” Chefnoff said the money is needed to ensure the centre con- struction can begin early next spring. Embree said he can “respect” Moore's comments that the city will benefit from the centre being located at the Community Complex. “If the City of Castlegar is going to fund an extra $3,500 of the aquatic centre, then let's say that. I don't have a problem with that,” he said. However, Embree said he doesn’t agree with “piecing off” various costs like site preparation once a refer- endum has been passed. “Site preparation is an integral part of construction. Why are we all of a sudden responsible for site preparation?” Embree called it “poor practice.” Yet, he said he can agree to helping speed up construction if the building committee is short of funds and doesn't want to curtail its building schedule. Council eventually voted unani- mously to pay the $3,500 cost. DOUCETTE continued from front page gar courthouse only to discover there was no court on that day. % She was told at court the matter had been dealt with on Oct. 13. The court postponed her case to Nov. 14. Last week, her lawyer said Doucette had not received the summons for the November court date. The Crown argued that the pro- ceedings on Oct. 13 should be considered though they never happened stating “they effect noth. ing.” Doucette will be summonsed to appear in provincial court to enter a plea and choose how her case is to be tried. sis November 27,1988 Castlegar News 3 Briefly Cop gets $150,000 VANCOUVER (CP) — A Vancouver policeman who won his job back after a lengthy court battle has been awarded approximately $150,000 in back pay plus interest. A B.C. Supreme Court judgment Thursday gave Const. Mike Carpenter salary lost during the period from his firing in November 1981 to his reinstatement two years ago. Carpenter was fired after being charged with possession of stolen property. He was subsequently acquitted in a jury trial. Villages buried in mud BANGKOK (AP) =- Soldiers used tractors Saturday to excavate villages buried in mud and search for survivors of floods that killed more than 200 people and left 300 missing in ‘‘hailand, an official said. Four army helicopters brought food and medicine to villages in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, the worst hit province, said Saim Kaewsinual, spokesman for the Fourth Army Region. Twelve southern provinces were battered by a week of heavy rains. Saim said that by Saturday evening, authorities recovered the bodies of 236 people, mostly victims of mudslides that swept through Nakkon Sri Thammarat starting Tuesday. He said 688 people were injured and 305 were reported missing. Mudslides destroyed 4,952 houses, 28 government offices, 221 roads and 69 bridges, he said. Hearst seeks pardon SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. (REUTER) — A request for a presi ial pardon for paper heiress Patricia Hearst, convicted of bank robbery in 1974 after being abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army, will get normal handling, a White House official said. “The Department of Justice has a process for considering such requests. It would be handled in the routine manner,” spokesman B. Jay Cooper said. Cooper was commenting on a report that Hearst, now married and living in Westport, Conn., quietly filed a petition in August for a full pardon from President Ronald Reagan. The San Francisco Chronicle said the 34-year-old heiress might be hoping for a pardon before Reagan leaves office in January but officials said the process could take years. A presidential pardon would be symbolic. Hearst's criminal record would remain, but the pardon would grant forgiveness. In 1979, then-president Jimmy Carter commuted Hearst's seven-year prison. Bell lays off 58 OTTAWA (CP) — Bell Northern Research has laid off 5€& employees in a week but says the dismissals have nothing to do with free trade. “Absolutely nothing at all,” spokesman John Hewer said. Hewer, describing the layoffs as streamlining, said they are insignificant considering that Bell Northern's Canadian workforce totals 4,600. Forty layoffs were announced Nov. 17 in Toronto and 18 were announced Nov. 22 in Kanata, west of Ottawa, he said. Tom H bury, vice-presi of administration, said three weeks ago the company planned to put the brakes on a six-year growth spurt in which its workforce had grown by 10 to 15 per cent a year. Soviets may delay MOSCOW (REUTER) — Moscow is considering formally Postponing troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in the face of mounting attacks by Muslim guerrillas, Soviet sources said. The sources said a final decision could be made after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meets President Ronald Reagan and president-elect George Bush on Dec. 7 in New York. The 60,000 remaining Soviet troops were due to be out of Afghanistan by Feb. 15 under a UN-mediated agreement, but the second stage of the withdrawal has already been postponed. Crash injures dozens MOSCOW (REUTER) — Dozens of people were injured, some seriously, when a Soviet freight train's brakes failed and it crashed into a passenger train near the Volga River city of Kuibyshev, Tass news agency reported. The freight train's crew and at least eight people from the passenger train were taken to hospital after the accident Thursday. The accident happened when the Kharkov-to-Vladivostok express stopped at a red light and was rammed from behind by the freight train, Tass said. 100 guerillas killed LIMA (REUTER) — Peruvian troops and police have killed 100 Shining Path guerrillas in a clash in the remote jungle in eastern Peru, a senior government source said. The source said 22 soldiers were also killed in the battle, which took place Tuesday 400 kilometres north of Lima. Toxic ship in port SINGAPORE (AP) — A freighter that left Philadelphia more than two years ago with a cargo of toxic waste that no country would accept has reached Singapore. Now called the Pelicano, the vessel is believed to have started its odyssey as the Khian Sea on Aug. 31, 1986, with 14,000 tonnes of municipal and industrial incinerator ash, published reports and shipping sources said. It was renamed the Felicia during a stop for repairs in Yugoslavia in July, these sources said. The Straits Times newspaper quoted a crew member as saying in a phone call that the ship originally carried toxic waste but disposed of it. It said the crew member confirmed the ship was previously known as Khian Sea and Felicia. Stone Age ‘factory’ SYDNEY (AP) — Archeologists have reported finding a huge Stone Age “factory” in the Outback where aborigines crafted stone blades and cutting tools for barter some 2,000 years ago. Scattered among weathered stone outcrops were hundreds of thousands of remains of stone tools and implements that point to sophisticated aboriginal enterprise long before Europeans set foot in Australia. The find follows the recent discovery of a fragment of human bone in central Australia that has been dated at 60,000 years old, pushing back the date of human occupation of Australia by 20,000 years. Indigenous aborigines number about 160,000, almost one per cent of Australia's 16.5 million people. HELPING TO BRING JOY . . . Castlegar firefighters Lindsay Anderson (left) and Theron Isteld display some of the boxloads of toys they and other Castlegar firefighters collected Saturday during the fire department's annual Christmas toy drive. The toys, many of which were donated by local merchants, will help brighten Christmas morning for less-fortunate youngsters who might not otherwise receive a gift. CasNews Phot Death toll rises in Soviet unrest MOSCOW (AP) — Soldiers killed three Azer. baijanis for violating a curfew in the southern city of Kirovabad, raising the death toll in ethnic disturbances in the city to six, an official said Saturday. Reports from official media said at least 120 people were injured and 150 arrested in violence in the Azerbaijani city. The violence has been sparked by a territorial dispute between mainly Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis Authorities also imposed curfews in the Armenian capital of Yerevan-and the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. They are trying to quell the largest outbreak of violence since early spring in the adjacent southern Soviet republics. Chingiz Sadykhov,| officer in charge of Kirovabad’s Communist party headquarters, said in a telephone interview the three Azerbaijanis were shot Friday for violating the overnight curfew. Soldiers in tanks and personnel carriers continued to patrol Kirovabad even though there had been no protests for the past two days, Sadykhov said. Three soldiers were killed in Kirovabad on Tuesday after being called in to protect the city's Armenian population from mobs of Azerbaijanis. The Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Kvezda said Saturday that they had been killed by a grenade thrown from a crowd 150 ARRESTED The newspaper reported more than 70 attempts to attack Armenian homes and apartments in Kirovabad and said more than 150 people were arrested. Several firearms were confiscated, it said. Sadykhov said about 120 people were injured in the unrest. Armenians and Azerbaijanis are disputing control of the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has a predominantly Armenian ion. Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by Armenians in Yerevan and other cities, have been agitating since February to annex the region In late February and early March, ethnic: rioting began in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait. At least 26 Armenians and six Azerbaijanis died Musa Mamedov, information director for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry in Baku, said in a telephone interview that demonstrations continued in Baku but there was no violence. Official Radio Moscow said the situation was “relatively calm” despite attempts “to provoke riots in several areas.” It said transport| and shops were operating. Protests stopped Saturday in Yerevan under a ban imposed by soldiers who were reported to be on nearly every street corner. ‘TROOPS PATROL’ “There are soldiers patrolling everywhere, espec ially in the centre of the city,” said Arpenay Popoyan, wife of activist Rafael Popoyan. “If two or three people gather, the soldiers come and break them up,” she said in a telephone interview from the Armenian capital. “The patrols are very strict.” Mrs. Popoyan and correspondent Yuri Kankanyan of the official Armenian news agency Armenpress said there were no demonstrations or meetings, which had been prohibited by the military under an order establishing a 10 p.m. - 6 a.m. curfew. Most public transportation and stores were open Mamedov denied reports of high death tolls in Azerbaijan, including one cited by Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, who said in the United States that more than 130 Armenians had been killed. Sakharov “did not give the source for his figures. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Soviet leaders will meet soon with delegations of Armenians and Azerbaijanis seeking a “solution that would conform to the best interests of these two peoples and our country.” Gorbachev made the comment in an interview with visiting President Francois Mitterand of France broadcast Friday on the French television network Antenne-2. Shoe factory closes Free-trade deal blamed MONTREAL (CP) — All 58 employees of /a suburban shoe factory will lose their jobs next March when the plant closes because its owner fears increased competition as a result of the free-trade deal. Employee Roland Poirier, who has worked at the Jarman Inc. plant in Lachine for 45 years, said: “I'm 60. I'm not going to find anything else. I don't think anybody will, not at our age.” In a telephone interview from Waterloo, Ont., an officdal of the Agnew Group Inc., Jarman's parent company, described the move as necessary stream lining to meet an anticipated increase in competition under free trade. “We feel we'll have to do things differently to prepare for free trade,” said Gary Alcock, vice-presi. dent of corporate public affairs and human resources. “There will certainly be much more competition.” An announcement Wednesday by Gillette Canada Inc. in Montreal that 590 workers — all but 60 of them in Montreal and the rest in Toronto — will lose their jobs during the next 18 months sparked accusations that the company is closing to cash in on free trade. Similar accusations were made when Pittsburg Paint and Glass announced it is closing a plant which employs 139 people in Etobicoke, a Toronto suburb. PPG spokesman Jeff Harrison said the plant is too close to homes and can't be expanded. Also, it would be too expensive to continue to modernize the plant to meet the company's environmental stan- dards, he added. The company will offer some of the workers jobs at other plants, Harrison said. PPG Canada employs about 2,800 people at Ontario facilities in the Toronto area, Oshawa, Owen Sound and Hawkesbury. BLAMES TRADE PACT John Kane, a spokesman for the Energy and Chemical Workers Union which represents some PPG workers, said: “We're putting some of the blame on free trade.” The deal will eventually eliminate Canadian tariffs ranging from nine to 12 per cent on PPG products. Ten Jarman workers were fired at the ginning of Ni ber and the r will be laid off in stages until the plant closes next March 31 Alcock said the closing is part of a plan to consolidate all production in Cambridge, Ont. The Cambridge plant employs 230 people and has the capacity fo pick up production lost in Lachine, he said. Last year, the company closed a factory in Seaforth, Ont., laying off 70 employees. Spike spraying quashed SQUAMISH (CP) BC Rail will not spray the controversial herbicide Spike on its Howe Sound corridor mainline and railyard areas, a company spokesman has told an environmental appeal board hearing. BC.Rail spokesman John Brodie said no Spike products will be used when the application program ap proved last April by the provincial government resumes in the spring. The decision was taken about a month ago, Brodie said. “It (Spike) has been used exten sively for 10 years by us and has proven safe. But there is controversy surrounding it, as evidenced by this appeal, so we are temporarily taking it out of the program.” The company will use two other herbicides: Krovar and Glean. The use of Spike to control vege- tation growth along railway tracks has come under fire recently The issue came to the forefront in August when protesters sat on rail tracks near Nelson in a bid to pre vent spraying along a CP Rail line. The environmental appeal board wrapped up two days of hearings here Thursday on a joint appeal by the municipal councils of Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton and the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District against BC Rail's use of the her: bicides within the municipalities. The thrée-member board is to deliver its decision on the appeal in four to eight weeks. BC Rail was granted the permit in April but only sprayed some railyard areas before the appeal was launch ed. It plans to begin mainline spray. ing in the spring if the appeal board finds in its favor, Brodie said. The joint appeal, filed in Septem. ber, followed reports of rail workers and nearby residents becoming ill after Krovar and Spike were applied to the BC Rail Squamish complex in late August. Brodie attributed much of the tes. timony regarding ill effects to the “hysteria of the moment” and ex. tensive media coverage. The use of Spike has also made headlines in Ontario where CP Rail has agreed to clean up residential properties in Sault Ste. Marie contaminated by the herbicide. Judge upholds cleanup VANCOUVER (CP) — A toxic. chemical site in northeastern British Columbia has been ignored for 2'/2 years while the companies involved argued it wasn't their problem, says a B.C. Supreme Court judge. Mr. Justice Ross Lander made the observation in refusing to set aside an order to three forest companies to clean up a site near Dawson Creek that is contaminated with a mixture of oil and pentachlorophenols, or PCPs. The toxic mixture was buried in the late 1970s, but dug up 2" years ago by Louisiana-Pacific Panel Prod. uets Ltd. Formal cleanup orders were issued last year by the provincial waste management branch The three firms “have succeeded in delaying the process of attending to the release of a toxic substance into the environment,” Lander said in a written judgment released recently BC Rail, which also got a cleanup order, had it set aside earlier by another judge. The companies were told in Oc tober 1987 to survey the extent of contamination, form a plan to stop the pollution and take action by Sept 30 of this year. The deadline was extended to Nov. 30. An action plan was formed by the waste-management branch last May, Lander said, “but no response is apparent” from the companies. A Domtar Inc. lumber mill and wood-treatment plant were permit ted to discharge effluent, including PCPs, into an evaporation pond, he said, but a fire resulted in a spill of 22,275 litres of PCP solution, which mixed with fire-fighting water. “The resulting mixture of water, PCPs and petroleum was relocated later that month to a pond,” he wrote. Domtar never reopened the plant, and transferred the property — part of which was owned by BC Rail — to West Fraser Timber Co. Later in 1978, West Fraser pumped out water arid dumped wood shavings into the pond to soak up the toxic chemicals. But “seepage began to introduce the toxic materials into the environ ment beyond the containment area,” said the judgment.