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Sketchy individual
RCMP releases image of man accused of sexual assault
Frank Peebles Citizen staff
Police have released a sketch depicting the suspect who beat up a local woman then sexually assaulted her as she walked alone at night.
The attack occurred near Freeman Park on April 17. The victim required significant medical attention. The suspect was a stranger and has so far not been identified.
“The victim had been drinking with a group of younger people whom she had just met in the bleachers of the baseball diamond and upon leaving the group she was attacked by a Caucasian male believed to be in his 40s, with short dirty-blond hair, average build and was approximately five-foot-four to five-foot-six in height,” said Prince George RCMP spokeswoman Const. Lesley Smith.
“The female victim was able to give police a detailed description of the male who attacked her,” Smith added. A composite drawing was made by a police artist working with the victim.
Anyone who has any ideas about whom the suspect is is asked to call Prince George RCMP at 250-5613300 or pass any suggestions along to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS / www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca.
Residents of Caledonia Trailer Park have been advised to boil water.
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Soil leads to boil
Trailer park manager digs up reason behind precautionary water advisory
Frank Peebles Citizen staff
A boil water advisory has been issued for part of the Caledonia Mobile Home Park.
About 45 residences are affected by the health precaution, which arose Friday when a leaking pipe was detected.
“Soil got into the pipe,” said park manager Peter Wang. “The advisory is just a precaution.”
The first attempt to fix the pipe happened quickly after the leak was discovered, but a persistent problem with water pressure had maintenance crews still at work
on Tuesday.
“Northern Health sent an inspector here yesterday (Monday) and he took samples,” Wang said.
That was Jim Green, an environmental health officer. He told The Citizen that nobody has shown any adverse health affects, but he ordered the boil water advisory just to be on the safe side.
“There was a line break, the repairs didn’t go quite ‘according to Hoyle’ and some grit entered the line and put the system at risk,” said Green. “It could take some time for the chlorine to decontaminate it. We don’t have any samples indicating any levels of contamina-
tion, but given that there was some material introduced, it was a prudent advisory to issue.”
The city’s water mains do not extend to the Caledonia Mobile Home Park, although it is well within city boundaries. It is on its own well system, as are about four others between the north shore of the Nechako and Salmon Valley.
Caledonia’s system is chlorinated and monitored regularly by an appointed resident. Adam Froelich in unit No. 83 is the newly appointed Water and Sewer manager, according to a notice sent out Tuesday by Wang to Caledonia residents.
Green said this is “not a high-tech kind of thing,” just the collecting of water from specific points in the park on a regular schedule, and dropped off at Northern Health’s offices for lab testing.
Green said boil water advisories are not common, but are more frequent this time of year due to spring runoff. Even the more robust filtration systems at the municipal water treatment plants can feel the effects of the more agitated water in early spring.
There was no prediction as to when the advisory would be lifted on the affected homes in the Caledonia park.
First Nations timber tenure unveiled by Liberals
Gordon Hoekstra Citizen staff
The B.C. Liberal government has introduced legislation that will allow the province to create area-based tenures specifically targeted at First Nations, something the aboriginal community has demanded for several years.
The new legislation also satisfies one of the recommendations from the Liberal’s roundtable on forestry. The roundtable recommended creating more area-based forest tenures that are of a eco-nomically-viable size, supported by legislation for a First Nations forest tenure.
“Through discussion with many First Nations, we were able to shape this new tenure,” said B.C. Forests Minister Pat Bell.
A key element of the new First Nations forest tenures is they will provide exclusive right to harvest timber on Crown land, and the right to harvest, manage and charge fees for botanical forest products, as well as practicing aboriginal stewardship and protect traditional use practices.
The First Nations tenure appears to be patterned somewhat after community forest licences, which the province has been issuing in the past several years in increasing frequency.
There are community forests in Smithers, the Mackenzie area, Dunster and Burns Lake, for example. The area of the licences vary, but the volume that can be harvested on an annual basis has ranges from about 15,000 to 30,000 cubic
metres (about 350 to 650 logging truckloads).
Bell said the specific of each tenure will have to be addressed on a First Nation by First Nation basis. He noted that in some areas, like Fort Nelson in northeast B.C., there will be more timber available. For example, on Vancouver Island, the annual timber harvest is almost all spoken for, noted Bell, the MLA for Prince George-Mackenzie.
During sweeping forest policy reforms introduced in 2003, the province set aside about 13 per cent of the province’s timber harvest for First Nations, community forests and woodlots.
Bell said he’d like to see that volume increase to about 20 per cent.
However, he noted that issuing
the new First Nations tenures is not going to happen “overnight.” Bell pointed out that some community forests have taken a decade to hammer out.
The B.C. First Nations Forestry Council reacted cautiously to the new tenures, saying it was a step in the right direction. However, First Nations have some concern over the market-based timber pricing system the First Nation’s tenure may be captured under, said Keith Atkinson, the council’s CEO.
Atkinson also noted that about half of the existing interim forestry agreements have ended or are ending, which is a big concern.
First Nations will be looking for increased timber rights and a growing involvement in the forest sector, stressed Atkinson.
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