Spears files $20M lawsuit /16
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2005

First test for national junior team / 11

U.S. lumber lobby launches appeal / 14

A look at what P.G. holiday shoppers are buying/13

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Photos by David Mah

Prince George airport crews de-iced a WestJet flight to Vancouver Tuesday morning, left, while a motor vehicle accident between a pickup and a work van resulted in two fatalities, below. Much of the Prince George area was caked in freezing rain Tuesday.

Council to make a CN stand
Citizen staff Mayor Colin Kinsley will write letters to Transport Canada and CN Rail raising concerns about the ongoing string of derailments along CN's lines. City council voted unanimously in favour of the move Monday night, two days after a locomotive with a single car overshot the end of siding tracks alongside the Nechako River between the John Hart and Cameron Street bridges. It was just the latest in a series of accidents, both major and minor, dating bac k to August and was enough to raise alar m bells for C o u n . D o n Zurowski, who suggested council take a stand. "I think council n e e d s to g o o n record with a letter to the Canadi- Derailments a an transportation concern: a ge n c y s t a t i n g Zurowski that number of derailments, certainly in the province, are concerning and the recent derailment in our community is especially concerning to the City of Prince George," he said. Transport Canada regulates interprovincial railways while the Transportation Safety Board investigates serious accidents and makes recommendations to prevent future mishaps from occurring. Council was initially only going to send a letter to Transport Canada and forward copies to CN. But Mayor Colin Kinsley suggested a separate letter also be sent to the "top brass" at CN asking them to explain why the accidents are happening and what they're doing to prevent them. -- see editorial page 4

Freezing rain hits travellers hard
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff Freezing rain that swept across the Northern Interior Tuesday morning wreaked havoc for motorists and travellers, turning fatal in a highway crash that killed two people just west of Prince George. A passenger in a four-wheel-drive pickup and the driver of a van were killed, said Prince George RCMP. The deceased are identified as Shawn Wyatt, 32, of Prince George, the driver of the van, and Joan Gardener, 68, of Vanderhoof, the passenger in the pickup. The driver of the pickup, a 75-year-old man, is in critical condition in Prince George Regional Hospital, police said. All were wearing seatbelts. Police said the van was travelling west, while the pickup was heading east. Road conditions and speed are being investigated as factors in the collision, said Sgt. Pat McTiernan of the RCMP's North District traffic services. "We continue to investigate to figure out which one crossed the centre line," he said. The collision took place about 10 a.m. on an icy stretch of road just west of Hartman Road on Highway 16. The road, like much of the Prince George area, had been hit by freezing rain. The highway was closed for several hours, then opened to one-way traffic in the afternoon. There were reports of other traffic incidents in the Prince George area, including one involving a logging truck further west on Highway 16. Another logging truck spun out at the bottom of Peden Hill. Quesnel RCMP responded to five separate motor vehicle incidents on Highway 97 between Quesnel and Hixon. Several of the accidents involved transport and logging trucks. Quesnel RCMP said with the freezing rain, roads have been extremely slippery. Tuesday morning, the Ministry of Highways reported extremely slippery sections on highways in every direction out of Prince George. Later Tuesday, Prince George RCMP advised motorists to stay off highways unless it's necessary. More than a dozen flights arriving or departing Prince George Airport were also delayed or cancelled. The freezing rain hit much of the Interior of the province, reaching south to the Okanagan. Environment Canada official Jim Steele said the freezing rain was created as a moist system moved over the Interior, while the surface temperatures had not yet risen above zero. "The lower few hundred metres is below freezing, so the rain falls through that and remains liquid, but as soon as it hits the ground, it's frozen," he said. "Needless to say, it made a bit of a skating rink of things." The temperature is expected to continue to warm, which will end the freezing rain, he said. The temperature is forecast to reach 5 C today, cooling to a high of zero by Friday, and warming again to 4 C by Saturday. There's a chance of rain and wet snow during the week. Road and weather information:  To check out highway road conditions log onto www.drivebc.ca.  For weather conditions log on to weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/canada_e.html.

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City to examine Cameron Street bridge supports
bike and pedestrian facilities?" Blues by MARK NIELSEN said in the report. Citizen staff The study will also consider the eleCity council wants to know if the Cameron Street Bridge's existing piers vation needed on the superstructure to avoid damage from ice jams, providing can support a new superstructure. If it can, it will save the city the cost enough headroom for boaters, and ensuring enough clearance of replacing t he nowfor the CN overpass linkclosed bridge with an en"Can the ing River Road with Cartirely-new crossing. existing piers ney Street. With that in mind, c o u n c i l e a r m a r k e d support a oneAn in-river investigation $190,000 from this year's can start in March or April or two-lane with findings available in capital surplus on Monstructure May. day, largely to carry out a If the supports prove vigeotechnical study of the including bike and able, Blues said a contract bridge's support system. Even if the investigation for a replacement superpedestrian structure can be prepared shows it can't support a facilities?" new superstructure, the by early summer. information gained will -- Frank Blues, When the tender will be still be helpful when it city transportation i s s u e d d e p e n d s o n comes to building a new manager whether or not council waits for funding from bridge, city transportation manager Frank Blues said in a report the federal and provincial governments. to council. Questions to be answered during the If council decides to go ahead withstudy include the condition of the ex- out, Blues said a tender can be issued isting piers and their capacity to sup- by early winter, allowing for construcport a new superstructure using to- tion in 2007. The Cameron Street Bridge has reday's design standards. "Can the existing piers support a mained closed since Sept. 30 after an one- or two-lane structure including inspection found wood rot in some structural members in a span at about mid-river. A subsequent inspection report from a structural engineer estimated it would cost $564,00 to repair the bridge plus another $160,000 to replace the deck for a total of $724,000. Add on the $175,000 already spent on repairs over the last two years and the total bill over three years will have reached $1.1 million, Blues noted, and advised against making any further repairs. According to a late-2004 estimate, it will cost $22.4 million to build an entirely-new two-lane bridge over the Nechako River. The city, the federal and the provincial governments would each cover one-third of the cost if the project qualified for infrastructure funding. Keeping the existing piers in place and installing a new superstructure has been an idea Coun. Don Zurowski has consistently raised over the last year or so and during the recent civic election, saying the option was worth further investigation. He had plenty of praise for staff on Monday night. "We're having a look at getting value out of some of the existing infrastructure," he said.

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INDEX
Annie's Mailbox . . . . . . . . 27 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Business . . . . . . . . . . . 20-24 City, B.C. . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5, 13 Classifi ed . . . . . . . . . . . 18-21 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Entertainment . . . . . . 16, 17 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 15

Winter solstice clocks in today
Citizen staff Today is the so-called shortest day of the year The winter solstice occurs at 10:35 a.m. The sun rises today at 8:28 a.m. and sets at 3:51 p.m., providing only seven hours and 39 minutes of daylight. These sunrise and sunset times remain the same from today through about Christmas Day. The earth is not perfectly round, and, except for a negligible few seconds, the short days do not get appreciably longer until after Christmas. "Between Christmas and New Year's Day, they get longer by a minute or two each day, not too big a deal," said Jim Steele of Environment Canada.

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