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CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Bob Stephenson recipient of a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal holds the certificate he received with the medal.
Years of service as a commissionaire and a soldier has earned Prince George’s Bob Stephenson a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
B.C. Lieutenant Governor Steven Point presented Stephenson with the medal during a ceremony in Kelowna earlier this month.
“It’s an honour,” Stephenson said. “I was really surprised when I got it.
“There were 80 medals awarded to the commissionaires and four were awarded in B.C., so that’s quite an honour to get it.”
The Commissionaires is a non-profit organization consisting of Canadian Forces and RCMP veterans who provide security-related services.
Stephenson, 73, is perhaps best known for working the front desk at the North District RCMP detachment, a posting he’s held for 11 of the 24 years he’s been a commissionaire.
Prior to retiring in 1988 as a warrant officer, he had served in the military for 33 years, the final four stationed at Baldy Hughes.
Add on his time as a commissionaire since then and it adds up to 57 continuous years in uniform - one day he was in the Canadian Forces and the next he was a commissionaire. And Stephenson doesn’t plan on quitting anytime soon.
“When you get old enough to retire and you don’t want to retire, you have to continue doing something you like and I like doing this,” Stephenson said. “And if I retired, I’d probably sit around and put on weight and I don’t like to do that.”
Stephenson, who is also the North Interior representative for Commissionaires B.C., said dealing with the public are the best aspects of his current occupation.
Being the greeter at North District RCMP means he meets all kinds.
— see ALL KINDS, page 2
Flood danger declines
Citizen staff
A&E 37
The B.C. River Forecast Centre’s predictions for the Fraser River at Prince George remained unchanged Friday.
While the river is expected to continue receding over this weekend a chance of a new surge remains in place, depending on rainfall over the weekend.
From a peak of 10.02 metres on Wednesday, the Fraser was down to 9.47 metres - but still above the flood elevation level - as of Friday morning at South Fort George.
Both the city’s and the regional district’s evacuation alerts and orders remained in place and both Cottonwood and Paddlewheel Parks are still closed.
Floodwaters are causing problems along Fraser River south of Prince George. See page 7 for more coverage.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
The Fraser River level has dropped as seen at Paddle Wheel Park.
I
Methane gas forces Lakeland shutdown
Take a bite out of
Paris
TRAVEL 20
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
The discovery of high levels of methane gas on the Lakeland Mills site Friday caused an immediate shutdown of the operational planer mill and district energy system.
Sinclar Group Forest Products, the owners of Lakeland, halted operations on Friday at 7:30 a.m. in what spokesman Cam McAlpine called “a precautionary measure to protect the workers at the site.”
According to Sinclar president Greg Stewart, “The action was
taken as a result of monitoring that found unusually high levels of methane gas at the Lakeland Mills site.”
The source of the methane is now being explored, as well as its possible implication in the explosion and fire that destroyed the sawmill portion of the downtown Prince George operation on April 23.
Before Sinclar Group started up the planer mill and district energy system, the site was tested for traces of dangerous gases.
That was followed up by more accurate soil sampling.
Monitoring was ongoing every two hours at the planer facility.
Stewart said all the handheld results for the planer mill were negative but “the sawmill site did show some elevated samples” especially when additional soil sample was done.
The levels in one test hole were high enough that, once verified by a lab, caused Sinclar enough concern to close down all heat sources.
Adjacent businesses and residents were also notified of the methane’s presence, and Prince George Fire Rescue Service came
to investigate on behalf of the neighbours but all of the tests were negative. The source of the methane is still a mystery.
“Anyone who knows the history of that area of town knows there were landfills present there,” Stewart said.
“I can’t say whether or not Lakeland is situated directly above an old landfill, but until we conduct further tests to understand the levels of methane and how it applies to our whole site, it is hard to speculate on its origins.”
— See NO DANGER, page 2
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