i} 7 . na _CastléarNews — Mech), 190

OPINION

Cuts worrisome

The prospect that there will be massive reductions to the amount of money the federal government contributes on a cost-sharing basis to reforestation efforts in British Columbia is extremely worrisome.

Premier Bill Vander Zalm said last week the joint federal-

provincial agreement — the for:

t resource development agreement

or FRDA — could be slashed to as little as $80 million from its current level of $350 million, split 50-50 between the two levels of gover- nment. The first five-year agreement expires at the end of this month and the provincial government was hoping it would be renewed for another five years at $700 million, although that may have been a bit

of a pipe dream.

Federal Forestry Minister Frank ‘Oberle said B.C. will get ones

money to continue its current r wouldn't say how much that will be.

efforts

(According to the 1989-90 federal budget, just $240 million wos made available for new joint funding agreements with the four western provinces over five years. But a spokesman for Mr. Oberle’s office rejected a suggestion that the most B.C. would get for its reforestation agreement is one-quarter of that amount or $60

million.)

Whatever the amount turns out to be, we suspect it won't be close to what Victoria hoped for, judging by federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson's clampdown on spending:

That would be a shame because by all accounts FRDA has been a successful program, not only here in the Kootenays but throughout

the province.

One of the program's primary goals is the reduction of what is

known as not satisfactorily restocked, or NSR, land — land w!

ich had

been harvested or damaged by fire or pests and has failed to regenerate naturally or by artificial means.

During the first four years of FRDA in the Nelson forest region, some $22 million was invested, in part to replant almost 22,000 hec- tares of forest and create more than 107,000 days of employment. If that were to come to a sudden end, the economic loss would be

nothing to shrug off lightly.

But it would be especially frustrating for the people who have made the-first FRDA a success to watch five years of hard work building the program from the ground up-all to the federal gover-

nment's budget axe.

In the , it will be i

g to watch how Mr. Vander

Zalm and his government react to this threat to part of the province's

number one industry.

Issues explained

Editor’s note: The following is Provincial Secretary Howard Dirks’s reply, dated Feb. 27, to a letter from Colieen Bowman of New Denver which appeared in the Jan. 21 edition of the Castlegar News.

Thank you for your letter ex- pressing concern with the proposed pulpwood agreement No. 9 and the Celgar pulp mill expansion. I trust that the following will address some of your concerns.

The pulpwood agreement and the previous pulpwood harvest area agreement have been in existence sin- ce 1962 when the first was granted to guarantee a wood supply for a proposed pulp mill in the Prince George area. Since then, these agreements have facilitated the establishment and growth of the in- terior pulp industry, while at the same time providing incentives for more complete utilization of the timber resource.

The Southeastern B.C. Fibre Resource Study indicated that much of the fibre in this region, which is now_either_bypassed, exported, bur- ned or. disposed of in landfills, could be utilized if there was additional pulp capacity in southeastern British Columbia. Therefore, a decision was made to proceed with advertising a pulp’ as an i towards construction or expansion of pulp facilities. Pulpwood agreements have been advertised twice before in the Kootenays, but were not awarded

Letters to the editor

because no suitable received.

The fact that there are excess chips in the Kootenays is a function of inadequate pulping capacity as op- posed to an unsustainable annual allowable cut. The proposed pulp- wood agreement will not result in lower harvest ages for trees, but will provide for the utilization of material which is not suitable for manufac- turing lumber and is otherwise wast

In reference to your comparison of

to the tree farm lleence conversions, pulp- wood are an

were

CIPE chastised

At the risk of being demeaning, I will try once again to educate Mr. (Craig) Lawrence and_help_ his Coalition for Information on the Pulp Mill Expansion in its endeavors to inform the public.

The widely distributed Celgar Report (a four-page brochure which was recently distributed in West

agreement over several timber supply areas for pulp-quality material. Tree farm licences provide the right to har-

Koot i ing the Castlegar News), on page 2 says, “Paper mills cle used paper. But paper loses somé. strength in the

vest timber it to app plans on a specific area.

Please be advised a prior to issuance of

process, and must be mixed with new pulp to regain the necessary strength to make it practical.

there will be hearings for public input regarding applications’ and a thorough evaluation will then be done on suitable applicants.

With regard to your concerns about the environment, note that Celgar and the Ministry—of Environment_are currently soliciting comments on the proposed expansion project. After the government has reviewed the reports and comments, a decision’ will be made as to whether the project will proceed or be subjeg to further review.

Howard Dirks Nelson-Creston MLA

WKP should pay

As provincial Energy Minister Jack Davis is aware, the $1.4 million cost of the B.C. Utilities Commission hearing into West Kootenay Power’s application to build a gas turbine near Oliver is currently being directed to the ratepayers on the grounds that the application and the costs incurred by WKP were reasonable and prudent and that the application was a valid attempt. to better service the ratepayers.

It is our position that WKP had a valid conceptual exercise in developing the turbine proposal. However, in view of the lack of a firm contract price and a firm supply of natural gas, there was no responsible basis for determining the probable cost of electricity and hence no assurance that the ratepayers would ngt be exposed tq much higher costs

for the gas turbine-generated elec- tricity.

In addition to the uncertainty of natural gas prices, WKP did not have an enforceable contract to purchase the used gas turbines and indeed, a year and more after filing the ap- plication, the turbines were still generating electricity in Venezuela. The turbines were essential, according to WKP, to being able to fulfil-the terms of the application.

So with two key unknowns, we feel WKP did not have a valid ap- plication.

We request that Mr. Davis review

the case in point and urge him to per- -

suade the BCUC to reverse its decision and assign all $1.4 million costs to WKP.. W.A. Campbell Kootenay-Okanagan Electric Consumers Association

More letters, page A5

means new opportunities for use of Celgar pulp. . .

“It istechnically not possible to use recycled fibre in Celgar pulp. But as demand for recycled paper grows, the qualities of strength and brightness inherent in the Celgar pulp supplied to paper mills will be even more in demand.”

The opportunity and the challenge to Celgar is to market a pulp well- suited to mixing with recycled fibre at a paper mill.

Virgin fibre, Mr. Lawrence, from a kraft mill such as Celgar’s, has to be beaten for 25 to 40 minutes in a refiner or other equipment until the desired qualities of burst, tensile strength, freeness and so on are ob- btained.

No one disputes the fact that paper made from recycled material requires neither bleaching or de-inking. I do, however, question the source of this fibre since not all paper products, books and magazines use the same inks or adhesive binding material.

Not all vegetable or organic dyes are benign and the type of paper desired by consumers, to a large ex- tent, determines the type of dye that is Suitable.

Professor Howard Rapson of the University of Toronto, in a recent ar- ticle, declares that the word dioxin is improperly used in the press and by the public to indicate 2,3,7,8- Tetrachloro-p-dibenzo-dioxin, one of 75 chlorinated dioxins which may be abbreviated to 2,3,7,8-TCDD.

“The compound 2,3,7,8-TCDD is ubiquitous,”’ he said. ‘‘While it is found in human tissues and our livers, human longevity is steadily in- creasing. Where does this chlorinated dioxin come from?

“Forest fires are the main source. Smoking cigarettes or any other organic material containing salt is the second largest source. When chlorine in the first stage of beaching is replaced with equivalent chlorine dioxide, the production of chlorinated dioxins, along with all other chlorinated organic compoun-

ds, is decreased linearly to nearly zero with 100 per cent chlorine dioxide.”

The (Celgar) expansion will replace nearly alt the chiorine-with-chiorine dioxide. Thus, a new facility is required. The old equipment cannot just be overhauled.

Sustainable development has got to mean usage of the world and its resources today without jeopardizing

Castle

Many important and varied municipal matters were brought un- der discussion at the Commissioners’ recent meeting of March 6 in the Village Office.

Recent installation of a new intake box at the pumphouse, together with new pipes and valves set five feet below the low water level, augers well for an even greater supply of clean, filtered water.

Consideration of suggested changes in our village street names and num- bers was postponed until the next meeting.

* 6

It is always difficult to get the un- mixed truth in any clash of human in- terests — and the current union trouble is no exception.

In all the confusion of charges and countercharges, however, certain things stand out clearly.

The first is that the Mine Mill No. 480 does appear to suffer from Com- munist domination — isn’t Mr. Mur- phy Moscow-trained at the Lenin University? The rulings and change of rulings in the above-mentioned Local 480 which come from its International Organization have not been above suspicion. Another thing to be con- sidered is that the Mine Mill Union has some gains in its favor C.M. and S. employees, whether these gains have all been th work of Local 480’s bargaining power/ is not definite in every instance.

25 YEARS AGO From the March bah 1965

Castlegar N A $53 million contract ts been let for construction of the Arrow dam. The contract, which provides for a $4 million management fee, bonus clauses and a penalty clause, was negotiated with the Foundation Co. of Canada Ltd. of Toronto in consort with Dravo of Canada Ltd. of Toron- to, the subdiary of a U.S. concern based in Pittsburgh. Dr. H.L. Keenleyside, B.C. Hydro made the for the Hydro board of directors. . . e

Castlegar ratepayers will vote for the third time on the village’s con- troversial $108,000 water extension bylaw on Friday, March an

A road the Vengit ai the Arrow Lakes as part of the Columbia River Treaty was p at

the same usage by future CIPE is nota fact-finding group for the general public. It is instead a vehicle for the uninformed to get together and organize against any and all development in this region.

I didn’t form CIPE or set out to tell the public or the press facts about the expansion, but from what has been published so far in local papers I think I do a hell of a lot better job than CIPE or any of its members.

Before you start your pen smoking again Mr. Lawrence, survey area sawmills and find out what chips and logs are being exported. Take a look at aerial photos of the region to estimate what percentage of the forest has been cut and planted to date.

Find out some facts before talking to the press and don’t take phrases out of context in order to put across preconceived opinions.

Fred Peitzsche Ross Spur

Slowdown no solution

After seeing a headline entitled ‘slowdown touted”’ on the front page of the Castlegar News (Feb. 28), 1 was both chagrined and amazed!

Reduce the speed limit ‘to deal with increased traffic? Come on now Lawrence Chernoff, our traffic flow and congestion is already bad enough.

Do you really want to turn things into total chaos by increasing the amount of time it takes to clear our streets of overflow traffic, not to mention the accidents that surely will happen as a result of increased driver frustration? Lawrence, I don’t know who you are any more than I know who had the foresight to construct our present

Postal service fight continues

Robson residents aren’t giving up on their post office, which has been an important feature of the Robson community for probably 100 years.

On March 4, about 20 residents

Castle

ESTABLISHED AUGUST 7. 1947 INCORPORATING THE Mi Lv CAMPBELL

1a gar N

DAGAABER OF THE B.C. PRESS COUNCIL

AD WEEK MIRROM PUBLISHED SETPEMBER 17,1978 AUGUST 27,1900 PUBLISHER AUGUSI 7.1947 FEBRUARY 15.1973

WICE WEEKLY MAY 4 1980,

PUBLISHER — Burt Campbell EDITOR — Simon Birch PLANT FOREMAN — Peter Harvey ADVERTISING MANAGER — Wayne.Stol OFFICE MANAGER — Lindo Kositsin CIRCULATION MANAGER — Heather Hadley

to saving the post office showed up at the third meeting called since the early January announcement about impending changes in the Rob- son postal service.

The Sunday-afternoon meeting was called by the Ad Hoc Committee to Save the Robson Post Office to in- form residents about questionnaires which ‘postal users will soon receive from Canada Post. The corporation typically mails these questionnaires after a closure is announced.

Postal users are expected to then choose from a variety of options,

such as green boxes or super boxes. At: the meeting, Robson residents decided unanimously to refuse to mail back the forms and instead will be signing a petition to keep the Robson post office. Residents do not want to willingly sign a death warrant for their own postal service.

Area representative Ken Wyllie is planning to seek an injunction against Canada Post to stop the imminent closure of the Robson post office on April 5. The corporation plans to; close more than 5,000 rural post of- fices by 1996, even though Canada Post made $96 million in profits last

. There are rumblings of other potential closures in the area, such as

" Sandra Groepler Robson

arterial wide enough to accomodate two. lanes of traffic both north and south. But I do know that the solution to our traffic problems lies in getting the damned cars and trucks to the respective destinations as smoothly and quickly as possible, not by reducing the speed limit, but by allowing traffic to sort itself by providing two lanes of traffic both north and south, from the downtown core to the south end of Kinnaird. How can you expect any kind of

'y the already very frustrating bot- tleneck into downtown Castlegar? Richard L. Roussy Castlegar

a public meeting held at ‘Burton and Edgewood on the weekend.

The road would require only a con- necting link between Edgewood- Fauquier and “Castlegar via either Deer Park or the present Kinnaird- Christina Lake highway.

15 YEARS AGO From the March 13, 1975 Castlegar News

An increase of 23 per cent over the original estimate of $1.6 million for the community centre and arena was acknowledged at Tuesday night’s council meeting, when Ald. Audrey Moore reported on the previous night’s meeting.

. . .

Boeing 737 jet aircrafts could be landing at Castlegar airport serving on the Calgary-Castiegar run as early as next month, but night flying has been rejected by the Ministry of Tran- sport. The contract for the long- awaited air traffic control tower has been let and construction will begin at the end of this month.

.

A possible bear problem, which could develop at the site of an out- door education site for which School District-No. 9 has applied for map reserve, has been a subject of some concern to the West Kootenay Naturalists’ Association.

The proposed area is located across the Columbia River from Blueberry Creek, on the hillside above the Champion Lake Doukhobor villages.

. . .

Snow in the area was two and a half times greater by the end of February of this year as compared to the same time last year.

5 YEARS AGO From the March 10, 1985 News

A police investigation into fraud

allegations involving Pacific Building

Please address all Letters to the Editor to: The Castlegar News, P.O. Box 3007, Castlegar, B.C. VIN 3H4, or deliver them to our office at 197 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar

Letters should be typewritten double-spaced ond not longer than 300 words

Letters must be signed ond include the writer's full nome and address. Only in very exceptional coses will letters be published without the writers name Nevertheless. the name and oddress of the writer must be disclosed to the editor

The Costlegor News reserves the right to edit letters tor brevity, clarity, legality end grammar

's cleaning contract for the Vancouver airport probably won't influence that company’s contract with the Castlegar airport.

. 8 6

Parents and employee groups of the Castlegar school district Thursday urged the school board to submit a “‘needs’” budget to the Ministry of Education.

A total of 13 groups made presen- tations to the Castlegar school board on educational concerns. Most of the Presentations offered support to the board if it submitted a budget March 15 based on the district's needs, board chairman Doreen Smecher said in an interview,

MORE LETTERS

Celgar making good effort

Celgar has made a lengthy, studied, intelligent effort to pollute as little as possible and is considering some ideas put forth,

An environmental show March 4 on Channel 25 stated that Canadian homes pollute mort than industry. Does your critical household practice what is being pore

Front-page

provincial study (money, money and years), then they want ‘‘funding”’ for individuals and coalition groups. They also want Celgar, which is run- ning a large industry, to take extra time and get information to them when Celgar has distributed many news pamphlets, had a day-long display with knowledgeable people

snd costs tha ection nothing bot thax time. The coverage wants the federal government to step in after the

Budget

The budget speech of federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson really sparked a wide controversy across Canada and rightly so.

The reason for such controversy is quite apparent. The budget favors the rich and slams the poor, including women’s groups. The intent to reduce the national debt, to pay back what you owe is ethically sound.

What the Canadian public doesn’t know enough about and the media is not telling is the origin of such ‘a huge national debt of over $35 billion. How did such an astronomical debt come about?

a radio open line and keeps an information office open. Many critics don’t hear — they just want to speak.

sparks

Who were the initial beneficiaries of such a debt and why should the poorest section of our society be the scapegoats and be compelled to pay for it with additional taxes, or suffer from lack of government funding, like the women’s groups, health programs and other social programs?

A lot of Canadians probably

Today, Celgar has the money available for an ad-

in millions more and using the latest which the en-

vanced What

in his right mind would keep that much expansion money idle-for the next three to five years waiting for thie left-wing critics to spend everyone else’s money?

The money to upgrade the present Celgar pulp mill to acceptable stan- dards in 1991 would not be as finan- cially sound an investment as putting

uproar

paid back to the governments. Also it is not known how many such bailouts and grants were made to other corporate enterprises across Canada.

Add to this the tax loopholes and outright not paying of corporate in- come taxes, plus defence outlays, which favor the military industrial

in the not dis past when the federal government was bailing out a private financial in- stitution in Alberta and a grant of over $60 million was given to a smelter in Trail. There were no repor- ts if such bailouts and grants were

Personal grudge goes too far

Perhaps Grace McCarthy should go back to Hawaii and enjoy the sun so the rest of us Socreds can get on with winning an election.

The isi on our

people I’ve talked to, both in the par- ty and out (and that’s a lot) seem to feel there is no real problem with having Christian principles as general

regarding Christian principles should be dealt with by the members of our party, not the media. The delegates at the 1989 convention voted to table the, decision until this year, when they, not Grace or the media, will decide what will or will not be done.

Her statement that the majority of the party wants the clause removed is a crock. We are a-party of all nationalities and faiths who like and respect each other enough that we used to even feel comfortable to tell jokes about each other, ike family.

Some people are trying to destroy those good feelings by creating a big issue about Christian principles. Most

FFB

A REPRESENTATIVE OF

CASTLEGAR... TRAI CRESTON............

dons les

Federal Business Development Bank

Lowe eeceeeeeeeeees+On March 15,

TO DISCUSS YOUR BUSINESS’ FINANCIAL AND MANAGEMENT NEEDS WHY NOT CALL US TODAY AT 426-7241 TO ARRANGE AN APPOINTMENT. Le Bonque offre ses services

jeux langues officielies

BACKING INDEPENDENT BUSINESS

for moral values (as they have been since the party was for- med), which IT assume should be a Criteria for any party.

We inthe party -mademany allowances for Grace because of all the good work she did for the party in the past. But she has gone too far in her personal vendetta and must open her eyes to the damage she is doing, not only to the party, but to herself. It seems strange that the Social Credit constitution was good enough for her to work under while W.A.C. Bennett and Bill Bennett were our leaders.

tris Bakken Kootenay Stone Centre Salmo

THE BANK WILL BE IN On March 7, 1990 -On March 8, 1990

- On March 13, 1990

. On March 14, 1990 1990

- »-On March 27,.1990

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makes Mike’s cash box pretty lean and, compels him to borrow, maybe from the same money

The end result is the national debt of $35 billion, with enormous cost of interest on that debt, and the whole burden of it unloaded on the ‘Canadian taxpayers, many of whom are poor.

Is this a fair deal, or are Canadians quite justified being angry and upset at such mismanagement of their national finances in favor of the wealthy corporations?

Walter Lebedoff Glade

but pi more ef- ficiently. If the expansion does not go through, do you seriously think the mill would carry on if it could not be marketably competitive?

With no industry, no vehicles, no plastic, no plumbing and no heating, our area and the Slocari’ (Valley) would have’ close to zero pollution. But that isn’t 1990.

Don’t get me wrong — I'm using soda, borax, vinegar, pure soap and recycling as much as possible. We cer- tainly must be more careful, but we can’t go backwards for our children.

Dorothy Martini Castlegar

Socred logic unusual

“Let them eat cake!”

The premier announces a ski hill plan for the unemployed miners at Kimberley. Presumably he thinks they will all be skiing while trying to sup- port a family on UI or welfare. The next step in this logic will see Howard Dirks proposing a golf course to.oc- cupy their time in the summer mon- ths.

From Terrace to Kimberley, this government seems committed to skiers. If the Celgar pulp mill were to close, perhaps the Robson Ski Hill Development wouldn't be such a far- fetched idea. Fan-n-n-tastic!

George Stein Robson

March 11, 1990 Castlégar News AS

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