The Prince George
Citizen
TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1989
So
50 CENTS
Low tonight: 5 High Wednesday: 22
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Business....... .......7
City, B.C....... ......2,3
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Crossword..... ......16
Editorial....... .......4
Entertainment.
Family........ ......10
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International .. .......20
Lifestyles ...... .......10
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Youth of the Year 3 Jogging ruse worked 5 Base closures stick 9 Our coins shunned 19 Liner rams iceberg 20
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PROPOSAL
PREPARED
HERMAN®
Pulp mill, city reach well deal
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
China Steel Corp., the Taiwanese company seeking a location for a planned $4-billion steel mill, has asked Prince George’s economic development agency to submit a proposal.
Dale McMann, Prince George Region Development Corp. manager, said the agency is spending $5,000 to $7,000 on a report to send to China Steel by the end of the month.
The company said in April it is considering B.C. and other undisclosed locations for the giant mill, which would employ 6,000 workers.
Three weeks ago it asked for submissions from Prince George and seven to 10 other communities in B.C., McMann said.
“We have to have it to Taiwan by the first of the month (July),” he said.
“The first draft should be finished Friday with the final draft some time next week.”
McMann said he is relying on information and support from a variety of government ministries, the railways and city hall.
A letter of support is being sought from city council, he said.
China Steel had previously said it is seeking a tidewater location. But after listening to a presentation from McMann in April, Premier Bill Vander Zalm said his government would ask China Steel to consider Prince George as a place to put its mill.
The development corporation noted the provincial government set aside a reserve of more than 5,000 acres north of the city for a proposed steel mill in the 1970s.
Located off Highway 97 near Salmon Valley, the industrial land is bounded by the Salmon and Fraser Rivers.
If the mill were located here, imported iron ore could be shipped to Prince George in empty coal cars returning from Prince Rupert on their way to Tumbler Ridge, Vander Zalm said.
The premier has said while there might be opposition to a steel plant in the Lower Mainland “you wouldn’t get that sort of opposition in Prince George if it’s good clean industry. People here are more accustomed to and ready to accept heavy-type industries.”
Mayor John Backhouse said it’s too early to take a position on the project.
It is up to the provincial environment to ensure that environmental responsibilities are looked after, he said.
“I think as a community we would have to look at it very carefully but to say yea or nay to it at this point is unreasonable.”
After a visit to Korea and Japan Environment Minister Bruce Stra-chan said earlier this month that pollution control equipment is available to make a steel mill acceptable to a B.C. community.
But Strachan said a coastal loca-. tion is more likely than inland.
McMann admitted there remain a number of uncertainties about China Steel’s plans.
There are no assurances the plant will go ahead and if it does whether it will be in B.C., he said.
"She's the opposite of 'anorexic."'
Ambulance attendants rush to hospital one of the two victims of a dramatic single-vehicle accident Monday, when a pickup truck flipped twice before crashing into the main firehall at Seventh Avenue and Dominion Street. Wayne Robert Redman, 20, is in stable condition at Prince George Regional Hospital. Police said Redman lost control of the pickup
Dramatic
accident
and hit a steel sign and curb, then flipped twice before coming to rest against the side of the firehall. Redman and his passenger, Craig Hansen, 23, were freed by firefighters and treated at the scene by firemen and ambulance personnel before being taken to hospital. Hansen was treated and released.
Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
NURSES STRIKE SPREADS
Hospital staff scrambling
by SHERYL THOMPSON Staff reporter
The seventh day of the province-wide nurses strike is not a day of rest for management and staff at Prince George Regional Hospital.
Hospital executive director Allan Husband said management people are “doing things they aren’t familiar with,” including working on the tray line for meal delivery and cleanup, laundry, housekeeping and portering patients and equipment.
“Non-contract people who are familiar with certain departments are trying to keep the departments operating as well as possible,” he
Hospital Employees Union members at PGRH voted 91-per-cent in favor of strike action, said union representative John Hurren.
The results followed an Industrial Relations Council-sanctioned vote in Prince George Monday.
In a telephone interview from Fort St. John, Hurren told The Citizen that 72-hour-strike notice would be served on hospitals today.
He is in Fort St. John conducting a strike vote with union members there today and will go on to Dawson Creek for a strike vote tonight. His tour of the northern part of the
province continues with strike votes scheduled for Chetwynd on Wednesday and Mackenzie on Thursday.
If the HEU does strike it isn’t expected to create more difficulties at the hospital as HEU members, other than those declared essential, are honoring the nurses’ pickets now.
Meanwhile, Jubilee Lodge, the 72-bed extended care unit at PGRH, remains behind picket lines today.
A woman who requested her name not be used told The Citizen today she has “nothing but the
highest praise” for the nurses, hospital administration and other staff who tend to patients in Jubilee Lodge.
During her visits, which she has increased to twice daily since the strike, she said the care given to patients like her husband is deserving of the praise.
“My husband likes ice cream. So when I visited, I asked when they were delivering the food trays to bring up some ice cream and they brought it on the next delivery,” she said.
“They all give what we call TLC,” she said.
said, ex ing the X-ray
that areas includ-lepartment are busy with ultrasound, X-rays, nuclear medicine and CAT scans that are required by physicians for the 137 patients in the 300-bed facility.
“We have to get appropriate people in off the picket line to help out as required,” he said, adding that the nurses who are working “are working hard.”
On the provincial scene, pickets came down at 11 institutions but went up at 17 others, putting al of 69 health-care tacilitie ploying 13,700 nurses behind picket lines.
Meanwhile, 500 members of the
New tax to be hidden?
a tot-acilities em-
by Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Shopkeepers will have the option of including the new goods and services tax in their prices instead of adding it on at the checkout counter in 1991, Finance Minister Michael Wilson confirmed Tuesday.
Wilson denied he was breaking a commitment to make the tax easily identified. But he added that his hands are tied because the provinces have the constitutional power to say how businesses will collect the tax from consumers.
“We don’t have the constitutional authority to force people to do this one way or the otner,” he told reporters.
On Monday, Finance Department officials told The Canadian Press that businesses would have the option of including the tax in the price of goods or adding it separately on the bill.
Officials said they expected that
small retailers such as convenience stores would include the tax in their prices to reduce administration, but that larger businesses such as car dealers and services industries would add the tax separately to price of the goods pur-chased
Wilson denied he was backing down from his commitment to consumers, saying that the flat, nine-
Ker-cent rate will make it clear ow much tax is being paid on goods and services when the levy takes effect in 1991.
Wilson told reporters that he doesn’t have the power to prevent business from burying the tax instead of tacking it on at the checkout counter — the way it’s done with the nine provincial sales taxes.
Wilson negotiated for a couple of years to bring the provincial sales taxes under the umbrella of his proposed goods and services tax to
create a single national sales tax.
He said this spring that he had waited long enough and decided to go it alone to get the tax in place by 1991.
The Consumers’ Association of Canada has already said it will oppose tax inclusive pricing.
But Wilson said the federal government will do everything it can to make sure Canadians understand the new tax when it replaces the existing, hidden 13.5-per-cent sales tax on manufactured goods.
by BERNICE TRICK Staff reporter Canadian Forest Products got the green light Monday to tap into Nechako River water by digging a well to supply its two pulp mills with a clean water supply during spring runoff, but it didn’t come easy.
Before third and fourth readings of a rezoning bylaw were approved, Canfor had to agree to a written covenant stating it will do whatever is necessary to ensure water supply to more than 48 neighboring residents should the well cause water table problems.
In a covenant, drawn up by lawyers representing the forest company and the city, Canfor obligated itself to rectify any water shortages caused by its well on the north side of the river on Pulpmill Road by digging deeper or new wells and by paying costs for hauling water, in the interm, should a problem arise.
The covenent is to be renewed on a five-year basis, rather than being in effect for just the first five years as the original agreement proposed.
Jim Cluff, the only resident of the area to receive a copy of the legal document, told council he’s leery of the company’s intentions.
He said all property owners, (within the well site’s 2,000-foot radius) were to be contacted and agreements struck with each, but instead, Canfor had struck an agreement with the city.
He insisted a clause be changed which stated property owners would be compensated after proving the company well had affected their supply.
“Having to prove the shortage is putting the onus on landowners. Canfor should have to prove it isn’t their well (causing the problem)," Cluff said.
“I’m less inclined this week than two weeks ago to believe Canfor is co-operating in good faith. They promised to contact all property owners and haven’t done so, but even more serious is that they didn’t mention expansion plans two weeks ago (at city council).”
John Doherty, pulp mill manager, said there hasn’t been time to contact all residents concerned and that the list of people was just completed in time for Monday’s council meeting.
He said the company wanted to reach an agreement with the city first and agreed to make separate agreements with residents.
Cluff said that two weeks ago the company talked about using the water for about six weeks only in the spring, but now they were talking about using it throughout the year.
In the end, Doherty agreed if water quality or quantity is affected, residents need only notify the company and action will be taken.
Canfor ensures residents will have an adequate supply of water while an expert undertakes a study to determine the problem.
City engineer Ernie Obst believes the risk of the well lowering the water table is low.
“The city already has two wells — 15-million and 20-million gallon capacities — in the area.”
He explained the Nechako’s river bed is gravel and as water is drawn out, river water naturally filters down through the gravel to replace it.
The covenant is to be amended, as agreed upon Monday, and drafted shortly so it can be registered quickly.
Summer starts Wednesday
Enjoy today because it’s the last day of spring, with summer scheduled to arrive when most of us are asleep, at 2:53 a.m. Wednesday.
The clock will seem frozen, with the hands remaining for three days at 9:46 p.m. for sunset and 4:39 a.m. for sunrise.
Sunrise will be delayed by a minute on Saturday but the sunset will remain at 9:46 p.m. until June 30.
The Prince George Airport weather office predicts Wednesday will be sunny with cloudy periods and a high of 22 as an improving weather trend arrives.
FOREST INDUSTRY
Pulp leads the way
VANCOUVER (CP) — First-quarter earnings for the B.C. forest industry are up eight per cent over the last quarter of 1988 but down almost 16 per cent from the same period last year, a report concludes.
The survey by Price Waterhouse, based on the financial reports of 10 of 11 public forest companies, does not break down profitabilty by sector, although strong performances in pulp and paper continue to offset slumping lumber profits.
Dick Bryan, senior economist with the Council of Forest Industries, said that pattern is likely to remain through 1989.
“We still will see strong pulp performance through ‘89, newsprint a little less strong but still positive,” Bryan said Monday.
“But lumber is a really difficult area because it’s hit particularly hard by the appreciation of the dollar vis-a-vis the American dollar.”