a € ‘astlégar r News February 14, 1990 Snowfall 20 per cent lower OTTAWA (CP) — Snowfall decreased by as much as 20 per cent in some parts of Canada in the 1980s, compared with the previous three decades, say Environment Depar tment researchers. At the same time, most Canadians experienced significantly warmer weather. Despite record-breaking cold this winter, overall weather trends in Canada in the last decade are con- sistent with the theory of the globat warming, said Alain Caillet, a meteorologist at the Canadian Climate Centre. “The fact that December was quite cold in no way diminishes the fact that there’s been a general increase in tem- perature,"’ he said. He said milder winters were the main reason for the rise in average tem- perature and they may also account for reduced snowfall. Data on overall precipitation has not yet been analysed in detail, he said. Snowfall across the decreased by 10 per cent; some cities, including St. John’s, Nfld.;—and Quebec City, had a 15 per cent reduc- tion. Prince George, had a 20 per cent decrease. Out of 15 cities surveyed, only the northern communities of Whitehorse, Yukon, and Yellowknife, N.W.T., had increased snowfall. Caillet said snowfall so far this winter is also below-average, with only 10-cen- timetres’ accumulation at most in much of the Prairies. The largest temperature increases during the 1980s were in eastern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba where temperatures were, on average, 1.4 degrees Celsius above the previous 30-year average. The Maritimes was the only area with slightly lower temperatures. The warmer climate may have con- tributed to increased forest fire country continued from page Cl © Dead seabirds coated in tar have become a familiar sight on television screens. © Burning rainforests in Brazil send up such huge clouds of smoke that they can be seen by astronauts in space — clouds carrying up to a quarter of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide. © The angry flames of the waste chemicals depot at St-Basile-le- Grand, Que., and the frightened faces of the residents as they fled the toxic smoke, have made PCBs a symbol for mismanaged hazar- dous waste. © Last summer, dry, hot weather across Northern Canada turned forests into kindling. Researchers at Environment Scientists Canada say 24.4 million hectares of Canadian forests were destroyed by fire in the 1980s, almost double the recorded amount burned in any previous decade. “If climate change is coming this sure enough looks like it,"” said one forestry researcher. But others caution it is too early to draw conclusions. While scientists grapple the unanswered questions, public concern continues to soar In January, Maclean’s magazine published a poll in which 29 per cent of respondents listed the environment as the most important issue facing Canada in the 1990s — by far the top con- cern. Teachers’ head, predicts problems VANCOUVER (CP) — School districts in British Columbia face isolated strikes this year as teachers try to build on gains made in the last set of negotiations, says the president of the B.C. Teachers Federation. Ken Novakowski said the political atmosphere in B.C. schools is heating up because Premier Bill Vander Zalm has ‘‘singled out education and made it a political football.’” And he said that could create problems as teachers head into district-by-district contract talks star- ting Marc! “What (Vander Zalm) is doing is creating again an unfavorable climate in education,"” Novakowski said Monday. Novakowski_said there could be “about the same’’ number of strikes which disrupted 1988 contract talks —- the—first_time that teachers bargained on a district-by-district basis. Nearly a dozen districts were hit by teacher strikes that lasted from one to 20 days before teachers settled. design department. construction for you THE VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO HIGH-COST HOUSING: FACTORY MANUFACTURED HOMES BY PACIFIC HOMES! nes in British Colum! Consider some of the many advantages of a precision-engineered home package: © Meets or exceeds construction industry standards © Pre-assembled components are delivered to your site allowing “lock-up” in a few days © Choose from a wide variety of home plans in our catalogue or plan your dream home with our custom © Assemble yourself and save, or we can arrange It all adds up to a home you can be proud of. Your style, your assembly, your savings. Every Pacific Homes package is designed to give you the most value for your dollar. 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In- creased extremes in temperature and dryness were contributing factors.”” In recent months some researchers have been challenging predictions of global warming, but Caillet said there is solid evidence to support the theory, The theory holds that rising concen- trations of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the Earth to get warmer in coming decades, bringing higher. sea levels and altered precipitation patter- ns. cv eenan 27 BACON & EGGS WE ACCEPT WESTAR, CELGA’ & COMINCO MEAL TICKETS BREAKFAST Available Mon.-Set., 8 a.m.-10:30 a.m... « ba 1 @ 99 Eat in only. Bring o friend! Closed Sundays & Holidays Se) HOURS: Monday to Saturday RE 7 pcm 1004 Columbia © Ph, 36! SPECIAL 230 a.m.-7:30 p.m $-8155 coer enna trees Castlégar News There's something for everyone! 365-2212 BUSINESS DIRECTORY TELEPHONE 365-5210 Busin March. New Insertions, cop he for the Castl News hanges and Directory will be accepted up to 5 p. e .m. Tues., Feb. 27 for the month of Brian L. Brown CERTIFIED GENERAL ACCOUNTANT 270 Columbia Avenue Castlegar * 365-2151 Gordon A. Read & Co. Certified General Accountant Office 368-6471 Residence 365-2339 1250 Bay Ave., Trail OR STIFF NECK? Call 365-5527 for appointment HAN’S ACUPUNCTURE 2505 Columbia Avenue BUY or SELL by AUCTION * Bor nkruptcre USSELL UCTION Estotes © Comign Outright Purchase OPEN MON. -SAT. 9.5 2067-34 Thome HERMAN” “He was trying to fill a disposable lighter.” SANLAND CONTRACTING LTD. GENERAL CONTRACTOR 365-3033 ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR IN THE CASE OF AN ELECTRICAL EMERGENCY, WEEKENDS OR EVENINGS CALL 365-3033, 365-2973 or 365-6250 Carpet Cleaning CLEAN-SCENE CARPET CLEANERS EANERS * Most Ad d System SANLAND CONTRACTING LTD. Castlegar, B.C. 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Invitations, Napkins etc COME SEE US AT Castlegar News 197 Columbia Ave BOY SERVICE Sump & Septic Tank Pumping Phone 365-5013 Plumbing & Heating 3400-4th Avenue Castlegar ROOFING © “COLEMAN COUNTRY SILVER CREST PLUMBING 713 Tamarak St., Castlegar Call 365-3044 éay-Fe Built-in Vacuum Systems 1 © Hhcent STARTING AS LOW AS ° s , SELKIRK HOME CARE SERVICE 345-5087 Heritage Week Columnist John Char- ters takes a look at what's in store during the annual week-long celebration in Castlegar Aé Most pledges Local curlers Dave and Val Mcintosh and Sid aad Janice Hardy brought th $1,405 at the Heart Fund Curl-a- thon... A2 LOTTERY NUMBERS The winning numbers in Saturday's Lotto 6-49 draw were 17, 18, 21, 22, 23 and 45. The bonus number was 7. The extra numbers were 24, 49, 76and 91. The winning numbers drawn Friday in the B.C. Keno lottery were 9, 12, 18, 20, 24, 40, 44 and 64. The $1,000,000 winning number in Fri-” day's Provincial lottery draw wos §475717. NHL scores The CasNews wraps up Saturday night's National Hockey League action... BI t ¢ P EGISLaT IVE 17 i on TAMENT Fy D MICTORIA Yau pal oa V8V 14 Vol. 43, No. 14 60 Cents Sy =A — News iTISH COLUMBIA, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1990 elgar By CLAUDETTE SANDECKI Staff Writer Celgar Pulp Co. should know by the end of March if its mill expansion plans can be approved or if more studies are required by the provincial committee in charge of the major project review process the corpany is going through, Ministry of Environment representative and committee co-chairman David Parsons said. submissions, ranging from newspaper clippings and let- Feb. 16. The of number of provincial ministries and a r the federal government, will tell Celgar officials what stage of the review the company is at once the committee has reviewed Celgar’s environmental and socio-economic impact studies and gone over the public submissions on the studies, Parsons said Thursday in an interview with the Castlegae-News. F epresentative from ives of a ters to comprehensive briefs and by late this week each member of the committee should have a copy of the sub- missions package, he said. Deadline for submissions was Copies of the package will go to libraries and other public places for viewing by area residents in the same way as the Celgar studies were put on display and each in- dividual or group that prepared a submission will be sent a package as well, Parsons said The committee will have three options Once each member of the committee has studied Celgar’s reports and the public submissions, he said, adding that a report from the federal representative will not be ready for the committee for several weeks yet since the federal represen- WEATHERCAST Today: Sunny with highs from -3° to 5°. Monday: Increasing clouds and milder temperatures. Probability of percipitation: near zero per cent today and Monday 2 Sections (A’& B) tative is responsible for collecting information on the mill's effect on the environment in Washington state. The committee may ask Celgar to provide a few pieces of missing information, the company may be sent on to the next stage in the review process where detailed studies on certain aspects of the expansion would be required, or the committee may grant approval in prin- ciple of Celgar’s plans, leading to the granting of provin- cial licences and permits needed before Celgar can build and operate an expanded and upgraded mill, Parsons said. Parsons defended the amount of time the process has taken Celgar, saying that, despite the review process policies being in draft form, the review has not taken longer than it should have decision likely in March The committee has received more than 200 public about the Celgar process,"’ he said. ‘‘ Any faster and some people no doubt would have thought it was being railroaded through.”” Celgar is the first company to be put through the major project review. process which has now been ap- proved by the provincial cabinet but has not yet been formally announced, Parsons said Copies of the final process policies have been printed and the committee will likely make an announcement on the approved process this week, he said. Parsons said the decision to put Celgar through the process before it was made final was made by government ministries last year when Victoria anticipated the process would be final by the fall. Celgar agreed to participate in the process, Celgar Pulp Co. general manager Jim “There has been nothing I would consider slow Standing room only d of its Castl CosNews photo by Sin pulp mill. About 40 people packed into the Regional District of Central Kootenay boardroom Saturday to hear presentations by the Coalition for information on the Pulp Mill Expansion and Celgar Pulp Co. on Celgar's prop i continued on page A2 RDCK committee to review expansion info By SIMON BIRCH Editor The Regional District of Central Kootenay board of directors Saturday voted unanimously to refer_infor- mation on the proposed expansion of the Celgar pulp mill in Castlegar to the board’s resources committee for study before taking a position on the project, board chairman George Cady said. Cady said he and resources com: mittee chairman Josh Smienk will discuss which experts to bring in to help board members understand the technical aspects of the propose ex- pansion. Cady said the resources committee will meet “shortly gpd.the expan sion issue will fack before the RDCK board at its next meeting Mar ch 3 at 9a.m. in Nelson. Castlegar Mayor Audrey Moore, the city’s representative on the board, agreed that the directors were given too much information Saturday to go through in one day. “Tt was pretty hard for us to digest all of the information that was drop- ped_on ‘the table."" Moore said after the meeting The board's decision to refer the matter to the resources committee followed appearances at Saturday’s board meeting by delegations representing the Coalition for Infor mation on the Pulp Mill Expansion and Celgar Pulp Co. Speaking first, CIPE co-chairman Wayne Peppard reiterated the coalition’s well-publicized concerns about the proposed mill’s impact on the environment of the region and questioned whether the new mill will, as Celgar says, be as environmentally clean as possible “As for state-of-the-art, CIPE's studies show that this project, although aimed in the right direction, continued on page AZ Share blame, union says By CasNews Staff Local 1 of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada is asking the arbitration panel mediating a dispute between the union and Celgar Pulp Co. to apportion liability for a 1988 union walkout equally between the PPWC and the company, union k Mike in said breached the collective agreement with the company when union mem- bers walked off the job over a seniority dispute in September 1988 However, the union executive says the company provoked the walkout, Espenhain said. “The union doesn’t claim it is Friday. The first part of the hearings in the case wrapped up Thursday. At the beginning of the hearings last year, the union told the ar- bitration board, consisting of mediator John Kinsey, union national president Bob Henderson and Ken Halliday, a local businessman nominated by Celgar, that the PPWC but it is to think the employer is without fault in view of the facts,"’ Espenhain said The seniority question first became an issug in September 1987: when a dispute arose over how truck drivers were chosen to transport valves to Calgary, he said. {~~ The union griéved the issue and the company promised to review the system but the problem was never resolved, he said The company breached its promise to the union, although the company claims the union dropped the grievan ce, Espenhain said The union was waiting to hear from the company, Espenhain added The same dispute over the transpor tation of valves occurred in Septem ber 1988 and when the employees “could not get management to ad dress the seniority the em ployées set up an information picket line,” he said Celgar’s lawyer claims the company did as much aé it could to deal with the dispute in 1988, Espenhain said, issue, Business group collects By CasNews Staff A committee of Castlegar business people has begun collecting money from downtown merchants and property owners to go toward the first stage of a downtown revitilization plan, Downtown Business Association president Jack Parkin said Property owners in the area designated for the project, defined as North Castlegar between Crescent Street and Sherbiko Hill, are being ~ asked to contribute $30, each while business owners in the area are being asked for $15 each, Parkin said The funds raised from the ap- proximately 115 business and proper ty owners in the downtown area, along with the $2,500 Castlegar city council approved for the project in January, will form half of the $10,000 needed to hire consultants to prepare a strategy plan outlining what changes downtown businesspeople and the city want to see implemented in the downtown core The other $5,000 for the strategy plan is expected to come from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture under the terms of the ministry's downtown revitilization program Parkin Said the committee — con- sisting of five businesspeople and property owners and a representative of city council — hope to have the money collected locally by the end of February while the union executive merely followed its members wishes and was not forceful enough in-getring-the- employees back to work “The company provoked the ac tion and didn’t remove all the ob- stacles from the union executive who were tyring to solve the dispute,”’ Espenhain said Celgar pulp mill general manager Jim Browne said Friday the company has a policy of nat commenting on cases in mediation and Celgar has no “pre-formed position’’ on liability in the case. Celgar is claiming over $600,000 in lost production and sales during the three-day walkout in 1988. The ar- bitration panel will bring down a writ- ten judgment on liability between now and May 14 when three more days of hearings are scheduled to consider possible financial damages in tle cas¢, Espenhain’said. The mediator will determine what financial loss, if any, Celgar incurred during the walkout and each party will be responsible for the percentage of those damages equal to the amount of liability apportioned by the mediator, he said. The union is claiming Ceigar suf fered no financial losses during the walkout because the mill ~was shut down for maintenance. LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE . .. Happy N. Healthy the clown provides the smiles during a news conterence to launch o new strategy in health care in the West Kootenay. Community health profile sought By CasNews Staff The Central Kootenay Health Unit this week will ask West Kootenay residents to help prepare a community profile of the health needs and con- cerns of the people in the area. schools and students at Selkirk College will be given copies of the survey as well, health unit director Nelgons&\mes said Friday following a news conference in Castlegar to detail the Together for Health program the will be starting Monday at stores and public offices in-15 communities from Grand Forks to Salmo and up the Slocan Valley. All students in West Kootenay Pi government is initiating provincewide. ‘The program, which has been com- pleted in Prince George and is un- continued on pege A2