eae Budget axe falls on parks Campgrounds, free firewood, inter By JEFF NAGEL FIVE PROVINCIAL park camp- grounds or picnic areas are being eliminated in this region, And campers who go to the surviving ones will no longer find free firewood or interpretive pro- grams, — Those are among the $2.1 mil- lion. worth of budget cuts © an- nounced last week by B.C. Parks. Exchamsiks provincial park about. .55--kilometres- west along: Hwy 16 will ‘essentially: be’ shut down, losing its 54 campsites, day-use area, pit toilets and boat launch. : Parks officials were already considering closing Exchamsiks because of a huge number of ha- zardous trees there would have to be cut if people continued to use it. a new, safer campground nearby, bul that won't happen now be- cause of budget cuts. Also eliminated is the Diana Lake day-use area closer to Prince Rupert, and the Ross Lake day-use area and boat launch near Hazelton, oe Two other. parks on Babine Lake north of Burns Lake. will also close ~ the Red Bluff camp- ground and Ethel F. Wilson “Memoriai/Penidleton “campproiind and boat launch, - . - Inall 43 parks around the pro- vince are being closed or scaled down, saving $400,000, - - ~ > “All are deemed low-use and do not generate enough revenue from fees to pay for themselves, ac- cording to the ministry of water, land and air protection. Three of the 22-parks ministry full-time positions will -be elimi- nated in the Skeena region, al- though it’s not yet clear if any Terrace office staff are affected. Other changes are also coming, “The government is going to start selling firewood,” said mini: sury spokesman Alex Dabrowski. Campers will have the option of bringing their own wood or pay- ing what the ministry says will be a “reasonable” price, © Providing free. firewood. cost’ about $700,000 ‘per year, he said. ’ Money: for interpretive ‘and other visitor programs in parks is entirely “eliminated, saving . $800,000 per year. Greg McDonald, the focal con- tractor who provided PTOgrams at . Lakelse Lake’ pravincial” park, ‘says it also means the end of the Jerry’s Rangers children’s ‘pro- grams there, ~ pretive programs slashed to save $2.1m granis to teachers and students on a tee for service basis in May and June but for the most part the pra- grams dre dead.” McDonald said, All visitor’ centres in provincial parks ‘close as part of the move except centres at Wells Gray and Mount Robson provincial. parks. ‘Interpretive programs were de- termined nat to he a core service Of the ministry, which: says itis concentrating. on the. protection. of. human health and conservation af the natural environment, However the ministry has indi- ’ cated it will consider proposals to provide the programs at no cost to government, Victoria ‘is ‘also tightening the criteria that “allows - disabled People to camp for free. “We're looking at about $200,000. in savings there," Da- ‘Low-risk’ bear calls may fall to police mal By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN THE CONSERVATION Officer Service doesn't know yet how serious a threat bears have to be before they respond to a bear com- plaint. Provincial cuts announced in January indi- cate the service will no longer deal with what it calls low-risk wildlife-human conflicts. ; But provincial officials .say they aren’t sure | » exactly what constitutes low-risk. “We are in the process of developing some criteria for assessing what is low, medium and high risk and that work is not completed yet,” said Joyce Murray, the minister for water, land and air protection. —- If conservation officers no longer respond to low-risk calls, local RCMP may have to re- “spond to those situations. ocd Ubink it, makes sense that law enforce- |. ‘ment -officers, have training.in dealing , with,;,. wildlife,” Murray said: “Sometimes: it's just::: not practical for a conservation officer to get Ahere in the time that is needed.” But some. northwesterners say they don't believe wildlife management should be a po- lice responsibility. -- “They have enough te worry about with ' ‘drug problems and killing problems, let alone the extra responsibility of dealing with wildlife,” said Prince Rupert resident and ani- tights activist Kim St. Pierre. “Unfortunately that’s what the province is doing by shrugging this off onto the shoulders of the RCMP and the general public.” ‘irs §t. Pierre initiated a workshop in Terrace ..Feb, 27 designed to teach RCMP members and others how to handle situations invalving . bears without killing the animals. ‘< Bears digging through residential garbage cans, fruit trees or frequenting local landfills are sometimes killed unless first responders employ techniques to get the bear to leave, St. - Pierre said. The workshops - a second took place in Prince Rupert Feb. 28 — were run by a group “galled Canadians for Bears based in Toronto. The training teaches participants to use vo- “I will be offering school-pro- brawski sald, LOADED FOR BEAR: Sylvia Doison, executive director of the J.J. Whistler Bear Soclety, holds a 6-millimetre single-shot pistol used to fire noise-making shells and scare off bears. It was demonstrated at a workshop for RCMP officers here. JEFF NAGEL PHOTO calizations, dominant body language, pepper spray and other non-lethal measures-to scare bears away from people and their homes with- oul killing them. “Some people are scared to cail the police because they're afraid they’il just come and shoot the bear,” St. Pierre said. “They don’t want to see a bear shot, they just want to deal with the problem.” One participant, Terrace RCMP Constable Brendan McKenna, agreed with the group’s premise that public education about reducing bear attractants to prevent conflict is crucial. But he added the RCMP is not publicly en- dorsing the program, “We haven't evaluated all of their material yet,” McKenna said. “We'll be working with | conservation officers to ensure that wildlife problems — particularly bears — are dealt with in a way which is consistant and maintains | public safety. The Prince Rupert RCMP issued a state- ment afler attending the program. “Our attendance in the workshop does not mean we will not use lethal force when there is a threat to public safety,” read the state- ment sighed! by that detachment’s Inspector Tonia Enger. “Our first and foremost responsibility is public safety.” at Rise in poaching feared as wildlife officer numbers cut By JEFF NAGEL CRITICS SAY the elimination of three conservation officers from -the Skeena region opens the door to more wildiife poaching and “ may: leave residents and local po- “lice to deal with problem bears. “The 19 per cent reduction from “the. present 16 conservation officer JS positions to 13 will hit Hazelton ‘and Atlin the hardest, where of- “fiees will close. oo * “How on God's green earth are “you going to do a better job with “this. centralization of people,” «.gaid Terrace angling guide Jim Culp in:response to the plans of the ministry of water, land and air “protections = | “a. He-said the region is already “severely -understaffed and can't ~take ‘the cuts, combined with in- “creased duties for officers. :-“We-.don't have any conserva- “\thonofficer ‘coverage of a lot of hunting: and. fishing areas they : have to look after,” he said. “This os /just:makes it worse.” -. Fewer officers means less hance’ to, stop illegal guiding, ioose poaching, bear parts traf- ficking-and other serious offences, “We know there’s a lot of ille- wet gal things going on,” he said, Terrace keeps its four conser- vation officers and may actually end up with one exira officer for part of the year. The former Atlin officer will be relocated here but will be expec- ted to cover the Atlin area from here, spending the summer there, said Doug Gillett, regional en- forcement manager. for the ministry of water, land -eey, and air pro- jp! ¥_ teclion, im Culp But Culp predicted travel time to deal with problems elsewhere will mean of- ficers won't be seen here as often. Conservation officers will be required to monitor future fish farms on the coast, Culp noted. Since there are no officers based in Prince Rupert, he said that will’ mean Terrace officers will have to spend much time overseeing. new. aquaculture operations expected to start since ‘the province lifted its moratorium on them. “A huge amount of their duties could end up being involved in that,” he said. Culp said they may also end up monitoring forest companies for forest practices compliance. Routine bear complaints may no longer be handled, Gillett indi- cated. , “We're not going to respoind to low-risk situations involving pro- blem wildlife,” he said. And Gillett admitted the office closures in places like Hazelton, Allin and Houston mean conser- valion officers may be less. avail- able to deal with even serious si- tuations. _ “I can't dress it up any differ- ently,” he said. “If there are no people there at times of the year or year-round, the timeliness of response to complaints is just not going to be the same.” “In some cases if it's an emer- gency sort of circumstance, some of that will fall to the RCMP in those communities.” Gillett said the “whole gamut” _of services now provided will be. reviewed ~ potentially. affecting’ - assistance officers used to give: farmers in keeping predators away from livestock. Gillett said the cuts concen- trate on managers, leaving field staff in the region rearranged but intact, He said the ministry will also look at other measures to cut costs. wy That may include conservation officers sharing office space and support staff with parks officials where possible. “We're exploring how much can be.done jointly,” he said. ‘Half-time support staff posi- tions will also. be eliminated in three offices, leaving administra- live support only in Terrace and Smithers, he said. . , The first priority for the mini- stry is now to deal with human health and. safety in’ guarding against pollution. . Conserving fish and wildlife and habitat isnow second priority, Thitd priority is. providing re- creation and parks, 7° “That's the framework we've got to develop everything under,” said “It’s up to the. public at the end of the day.to determine whe. — ‘ther that’s: sallsfactory or not." The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 13, 2002 - AS CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD The Mail Bag The roads are bad indeed Dear Sir: After reading recent comments from city councillors Dave Hull, Ron Vanderlee and Rich McDaniel on local highway conditions, it’s obvious that they are uninformed, inexperienced and oblivious of the truth, Commuting between Terrace and Kitimat for the Jast 13 years has given me a different perspective on this perennial problem. Let's be honest, the average . driver may use this route occasionally, but how many people drive during or after a storm unless absolutely necessary? No cne wants lo point fingers, but the truth is that if road conditions are in that bad of shape then the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the contractor, in this case Nechako Northcoast. Either they don’t understand the traffic patterns on our highways or they just don’t care. : On Hwy3? the first rush is between 4:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. with the majority from 4:30 to aboul 7 a.m. Alcan workers and construction workers make up a large part of this. It is rare to see a plow truck before 7:00 a.m. By that time the snow that has fallen all night, has been packed and retted by the chip trucks that work during those early morning hours. ] don’t believe the 4em rule exists (let’s be real - how significant is dem). It’s more like 40 cm. One inch of slush is much harder to navigate at 80km per hour than 4 inches of powder, but the slush is never cleared and what’s left in the center of the road is causing a great deal of accidents. Clearing the straights seems to be their forte, but corners sadly lack attention and the hills which either become one lane or are left slushy, icy or all three. What’s really frustrating at 6:45 a.m. is passing a plow truck parked at the Onion Lake pulloff. What's that all about? My advice is to get the road foreman out there at 4 a.m., check weather forecasts (if it’s raining in town it’s usually snowing on the hills) and, most importantiy, listen to the drivers that depend on this route for their livelihood. They know better than bureaucrats and politicians, for whom the dollar is the bottom tine, and like to invent stories about three week road closures, Ed Carreiro, Terrace, B.C. Equal? You bet Dear Sir: This is in response to recent comments from Lynn Stephens, the provincial women’s equality minister, that “A single woman and a single man have exactly the same opportunities, with the same education.” We don't understand what all the fuss is about. We are absolutely delighted to learn that, after centuries of discrimination, women are now “exactly equal” and have all the same rights and opportunities as men, * We are surprised to discover that women have only ourselves to. blame for the difference between men’s and.,women’s. incomes. We, didn’t, know, thal. we preferréd low income and part time jobs. And we never considered the option of making more money when it came to female poverty. Gosh, Why didn't we think of that? Maybe we are just lacking the education. But we are having a hard time figuring cut how to make more money when our experience is that our work is undervalued. We are so thrilled that Lynn Stephens has established that none of our problems have anything to do with equality. After all, in her job, she does receive a high wage equal to her male counterparts, does get great benefits equal to your her counterparts, does have a generous pension plan equal to her male counterparts and does have on-site childcare. That does sounds like equality. Move over and make room for the rest of us. Terrace Women's Resource Centre, Terrace, B.C, Time to wake up Dear Sir: Are you not hurting enough from the continuing saga of government incompetence? I wonder how much you have to suffer before you speak up. I listen to the stories of the butchering of our services, and the whining of laid off government workers, but I hear nothing from government or ex- government employees expressing their responsibility to self-employed or forest workers that face the real measure of need. It is past time that taxpayers received some value, some responsibility from the government and their agents (the employees). Look up the definition of a democratic government. Or are some more equal than others? And now to appease fat cats we are faced with an equal heresy in another formula for payoffs to the elite. When is the guy paying for all this going to wake up? Our government should make responsibility a requirement of their “service”. There must be a responsible independent means of enforcing credibility from our system. Reward their efforts and professionalism well (good ones deserve raises) and fire the leaches. Current layoffs are just another shuffle of incompetence at the expense of productive people. An independent review panei should assess the performance of doctors that pump pills and turnstile people out of their offices to return another day for another and another visit. They should answer for their breach of trust. This should be applied to all public sectors, Why should _they get a position that feeds off us but does nat answer to our needs? How many have to die on our highways, and in our » hospitals, or come out of our schools illiterate? Bruce Toms, Terrace, B.C. About the Mail Bag -The Terrace Standard welcomes letters. Our address is 3210 Clinton St., Terrace, B.C, VBG 65R2,. You can fax us at 260-638-8432 or e-mail us at standard@kermode.net. No attachments, please. We need your name, address and _phone number for verification. Our deadline is noon. Friday or noon Thursday if it's a long weekend. ‘