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Vol. 41, No. 62

CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1988

WEATHERCAST

Sunny Thursdey with highs near
90°. A cold front may tri
some showers Friday. while
au sun and
25" on Friday ond

4 Sections (A, B, C&D)

Coyote attacks tot in park

‘The Canadian Press
cresTon = " Vietor Kimball says his 18-month-old
daughter who was attacked by a coyote during the
weekend nearly became the animal's meal.
“He was going to have her for lunch, that's all there
was to it,” said the Edmonton man, who raced about 80
metres to help his daughter after he heard screams.

Coyote attacks, A2

“When I got there she was face down in the dirt and he
was biting her in the head and licking the blood. And

she was covered in it.”

Jolynn Kimball needed nearly five hours of surgery
Sunday after the attack. Doctors used more than 200
stitches to close wounds to her face, head, arms, fegs

and abdomen,

The child was in stable condition Monday in the
intensive-care unit of Trail Régional Hospital, where

FOUR GENERATIONS .. .

she is likely to remain for a week.
The attack, at a southeastern British Columbia
picnic area, was the sixth such incident in Alberta and
British Columbia during the last five days.
On Friday, Christine Carter of St. Albert, Alta.,
was dragged from her sleeping bag during a camping
trip in Banff National Park. Carter, 16,

received

puncture wounds to her left forearm.
The Kimballs, on a family vacation through British

Trail.

Columbia, were preparing to leave the picnic area for

Jolynn and her sister Sarina, 10, were walking on a

than a minute.

ht-month-old identical triplets are the

youngest members of the Fulcher family, who were together in Cas-
tlegar for a-few days. (From left) great- grandparents Thomas and
Rose Fulcher of Trail; Nicole, Erin and Jessica; grandfather Peter

well-travelled trail around Stag Leap Lake when the
coyote jumped from the bush and attacked.
Victor Kimball estimated the attack lasted more

“He had chewed up her pretty good,” he said. “At
first I thought she was going to lose her left eye. But the

doctor said her eyes are fine. And her right ear got
chewed up, too, but no pieces were missing.”
The animal just jumped on his daughter without

warning, Kimball said.

“Usually when I'm travelling in the mountains, I
carry a gun. But this time I didn’t have one.
“But I knew this one was going to die, even if I had
to go back and do it with my bare hands.”
After wrapping Jolynn in bandages, the Kimballs
rushed her 45 kilometres to hospital in Creston, where
ed and transferred by ambulance to

Creston RCMP said they found and destroyed the
coyote they believe was responsible for the attack.

Conservation officer Martin Melderis said the _ ini
animal tested negative for rabies. The attack is puzzling
because coyotes are generally timid creatures,

added.

Fulcher of Castlegar; and parents Peter and Cathy (nee Steele)

Fulcher of Invermere. Missing from photo is four-year

Fulcher.

Saral

CosNews Photo by Bnne Morgan

INSIDE

Local RCMP
crack down

page A2

Lottery
numbers

The winning numbers drawn
Tuesday in The Pick lottery
were 19, 20, 28, 34, 36, 38,
40 and 41.

IWA looks
at offer

page A2

Athletes
get medals

page B1

IN WARFIELD,

TRAIL

Cominco to

By CasNews Staff

Cominco Ltd. has contracted with
a chemical disposal company to treat
electrical transformers contaminated
with PCBs (polychlorinated biphen.
yls) at its Trail and Warfield plants.
Sun Environmental Ltd. will be
draining eight transformers and four
transformer tap changers (transfor:
mer switches) of about 45,000 litres

of PCB-contaminated oil.
Graham Kenyon, chief of envir
onmental services at Cominco in

Trail, said the PCB removal process
is a “completely-enclosed, fully con
tained” process.

“They take the tap off a trans.
former and run it through a
truck-mounted facility where a chem.
ical reaction takes place until the
level of PCBs is negligible,” he told
the Castlegar News today. “The
material left over is salt (sodium
chloride) and other harmless by
products that are either re-used or
easily disposed of.”

Castlegar man killed
in motorcycle crash

By CasNews Staff

A 20-year-old Castlegar man was
killed yesterday afternoon in Nelson
when the motorcycle he was driving
collided with another vehicle.

Nelson City Police say Richard
Brian Colville was driving down
Baker Street about 1:45 p.m. Tues
day when his motorcyle collided with

a truck.

Police say Colville died as a result
of the injuries sustained in the
accident. There were no other
injuries and police did not release the
name of the other driver involved in
the mishap.

The accident is still under inves
tigation.

drain PCBs

Kenyon said the biggest problem
with PCBs is they don't break down
and they accumulate.

“It doesn’t break down, it’s a long.

lasting material,” he said. “It would
just keep accumulating and that's
where the concern stems from.”

Now there is a process where
PCBs can be broken down without
exposing the environment to the
chemicals.

“It’s part of a long-term program
to eliminate the risk of having PCBs
around,” “It avoids the
potential of
there won't be any accumulation of
PCBs.”

Kenyon said the| process would
remove the PCBs from the trans
former oil (the oil has 50 to 400 parts
PCB per million) and the oil would
then be re-used

Kenyon stressed the process is
completely contained and is not an
incineration process with combustion
emissions.

The trailer-mounted mobile pro-
cessing facility arrives next week in
Warfield where work will begin Aug.
11.

Porcupine
fire in which the pilot of a
Conair air tanker was killed last
week, has been brought under
control.

“We are just in the mop up

FIRE UNDER CONTROL

were 10 new forest fires
in the Arrow district
over the weekend.

The fires. were caused by
lightning strikes and are located
mostly north of Nakusp.

Byvans said the fires are “fairly

Dr.

animal,

However, the animal that attacked Jolynn seemed
to have no fear of people. When Victor Kimball rescued
her it retreated but did not run away.

Lu Carbyn, a research scientist with the
Canadian Wildlife Service, said attacks of this nature
are not common but neither are they unheard-of.

“There are always exceptions to the rule, and what
you have here is predatory behavior on the part of the
” he said. “It has lost all its fear of man and looks
at the child as food.

“If they're not afraid and if they're hungry, they'll

attack,” he said, adding people should report seeing any

he

unusual behavior or boldness in the animals.
Kimball said his family has recovered from the
1 shock. His wife Joanna and another daughter,
Marla, 11, are also on the trip.

“Jolynn-ooked pretty bad yesterday and we were

all upset, but she looks a lot better today.”

City, RDCK

turn down

offer

ferry

By BRENDAN NAGLE
Staff Writer

The Regional District of Central
Kootenay and the City of Castlegar
have decided against operating the
Castlegar-Robson cable ferry.

Regional district chairman George
Cady said the provincial Highways
Ministry has been informed the
district has no intention of operating
the vessel. The ministry sent letters
to the regional district and the city
asking if either wanted to operate
the ferry or if they had any objec
tions to the ministry selling the
vessel to the Robson-Raspberry
Ferry Users Ad Hoc Committee. The
regional district answered no to both
questions, Cady said.

“We'd be delighted to see them
(the committee) take it over,” Cady
said. “We don’t, want it.”

He said the ad hoc committee could
go looking for subsidies and funding
from local interest groups like the
Castlegar Chamber of Commerce and
the Castlegar Downtown Business
Association but will not receive any
funding from regional district cof-
fers.

“We'd have to go to the provincial
government to get permission to levy
an additional tax for subsidizing the
ferry,” Cady said. “Who would we
tax, just the users of the ferry or the
entire regional district?”

The ministry sent the letters to the
city and the regional district follow
ing a proposal from the ad hoc
committee to purchase the vessel.
Cady said the ministry was making
sure there was no interest from the
regional district or Castlegar before
making a decision on the ad hoc
committee's proposal.

The ministry has not yet made a
decision on the proposals even
though the regional district and the
city have said they don't want to
operate the vessel and have no
problems with the ad hoc committee
taking it over.

“We wrote a letter in response to
the ministry's letter within 24
hours,” Mayor Audrey Moore told
the Castlegar News today. “We said
we weren't interested in taking over
the ferry and have no objections to
the ad hoc committee running it.”

The city had discussed the possib-
ility of the Highways Ministry pro-
viding subsidies for operating the
ferry, but Moore said the govern-
ment offered no funding.

“We researched that and we were
told the offer to purchase the vessel
was without subsidy,” she said.

If the ad hoc committee does re-
ceive permission to buy the vessel,
Castlegar will not be able to provide
any funding either, Moore said.

“We certainly are in the midst of a
budget year,” she said. “We just
would not have any money.”

Committee spokesman Fern Allam
said the group is still waiting to hear
from the ministry. The ministry has
acknowledged the purchase offer but
has not yet made a decision on the
sale.

“They haven't come back to us
with any terms of sale,” she told the
Castlegar News today. “Basically
we're waiting to hear from them
because we don't know what they're
going to require from us.”

Allam added the eommittee has
not discussed subsidies or funding
yet because the group does not know
if the ministry will sell the vessel

Tax task force

in Trail,

By BONNE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Kootenay West residents will have
an opportunity to express their
views regarding the Northern and
Isolated Benefits policy to a special
task force set up by the federal
government to enquire into the
inequities of the tax allowance

“We now have a three-man com
mission to examine the problems and
they will visit Kootenay West to hear
first hand the concerns and sug:
gestions of residents, municipalities
and regional districts,” Kootenay
West MP Bob Brisco said in a
prepared release.

“The task force members will be
hearing testimony in Nelson Aug. 22,
and in Trail on Aug. 23, at the city
council chambers in both of those
municipalities.”

After reviewing the existing Nor
thern and Isolated Benefits policy,
the task force will submit recom
mendations aimed at making the
policy fairer and provide a mechan
ism for review

The task force was established in
April by Finance Minister Michael
Wilson to study the criteria for de
termining isolated areas.

Recommendations which expand
benefits to communities will go into

Nelson

effect for the 1988 taxation year and
a policy change would reduce or
eliminate benefits will come into
effect in the 1989 taxation year.
According to the task force, prop-
osals should be “revenue neutral.”
The recommendations could include
reductions for some communities
south of the 60th parallel to offset
any significant broadening of the cri-
teria for eligibility. The task force
will consider a graduated level of
benefits for communities south of the
60th parallel to recognized differ
ences in the degree of isolation and
environmental harshness.

The chairman of the task force is
Rene Brunelle of Ontario.

Michael MvGillivray, a long-time
resident of Prince George and Daw-
son Creek and Edward Poole, a
lawyer from Newfoundland, are vice-
chairmen.

The task force, which has a $2.8
million budget, is to have its final
written report completed by Oct. 31.

Individual residents are encour-
aged to form neighborhood groups
and designate a spokesperson to
address the hearing.

Groups wanting to appear before
the commission should contact Bris-
co's constituency office in Castlegar,