THE GARBAGE CRUNCH Tax bite about to increase TERRACE — Local taxpayers better brace themselves to pay more to dispose of their garbage . in the years ahead. It won’t happen right away, but _ the ever-escalating costs of hand- ling waste are about to start hit- ting home. The Kitimat Stikine Regional District —- along with every similar district aud municipality in the province — is under orders . to come up with a plan by 1995 to “halve the amount of garbage hit- ting our landfills by the year 2000, _- So far it?s done nothing to meet that requirement — issued almost three years ago. oS (We're talking huge dollars ~ over the next few years just doing the plan,’’ regional district ad- ~ ministrator Bob Marcellin says. “And then it will take enormous dollars to implement it.” “The daunting task will require -- more staff to carry out, he says. . “It’s going to involve sig- nificant increases in the budget,”’ he added. ‘‘Waste management is “going to bea full-time job.”’ ‘Not doing the plan, however, could cost even more, Amend. ments to the Waste Management ' Act include provisions for fines - o£ up to $300,000 for regional » districts that don’t complete plans by the deadline or that fail to carry out a plan once its drawn -up, according to the terms . specified. ‘So far the plan bas been pushed to the backburner, being edged out in favour of the regional dis- trict’s more pressing priorities: a sewer system for the Queensway area, a 911 emergency phone sys- tem, and Terrace area restructur- ing to either incorporate or amal- gamate Thornhill. ‘We've got to get our act to- gether and start planning,’” said Kitimat director Tom Goyert. TERRACE — Recycling is dead in the City of Terrace. That was city alderman Rick King’s pronouncement last weck after city council decided to stop subsidizing the Skeena Valley Recycling Society's operations. The local recycling depot will probably close its doors the week before Christmas. “T don’t think it’s going to hap- pen again,’’ said King, who made recycling one of the main planks in his 1990 clection platform. ‘Nobody's got the money fo make it happen, And that’s what killed the society. They couldn’t get the money up front to pay for the equipment they needed to op- erate.” “The market just fell out from under us. And nobody could have predicted it.’’ The depot was heavily sub- sidized for the past year by both the city and the regional district. The city covered the depot’s rent to the tune of $23,000 this year, The regional district pro- vided a $13,000 grant for pur- chase of a trick, which it will take possession of when the depot closes. Skeena Valley Recycling Society co-chairman Frank Donahue says the city made the right decision to stop paying the $1,800 monthly rent for the build- ing off Hwy 16 West. THE MONEY PIT: Thornhill dump and the regional district's other landfills will increasingly suck in tax dollars as tighter environment reguiations make dumps more expensive to operate, Thomhill taxpayers can .expect tax hikes next year to pay down the $170,000 accumulated debt on the dump — and more money in the future to pay for a solid waste management plan. ‘7 think we have to bite the bullet and go,’? adds Terrace mayor Jack Talstra. The solid waste management plan . would cover the entire region, including Terrace, Kitimat and Thombill. It would likely involve the clos- ing of all existing dumps in favour of a so-called superdump that would likely be located south of Lakelse Lake near the pro- posed Orenda paper mill site. And it would include strategies for recycling and other metheds of cutting the waste stream. The Skeena-Queen Charlotte regional district is nearly halfway “The cily was accepting a less than proportionate share of the burden,’? Donahue said. “‘And the regional district needs to take more responsibility. Rather than taking a leading role they have taken a free ride,”’ “The city’s direct subsidy is more than $150 per ton — and that’s too much money for one group, namely the residents of Terrace, to bear.”’ The depot was facing a cash shortage and seemingly inevitable closure this time last year when the city offered up the one time grant to keep it afloat. But the market outlook was much better then. At that time the depot was gel- ting $10 to $12 a ton for glass and tin, Donahue says. ‘By Septem- - ber we were paying up to $30 a ton to have them take it away.” They stopped taking everything but paper and cardboard in the summer, By this fall the depot couldn’t even break even on the most profitable recyclable commodity -— cardboard - because the price had plummeted to half what it Was & year ago. ‘The market just fell out from under us,’’ Donahue says. *‘And nobody could have predicted it.’* ‘We had a solid volunteer cf- fort. But it seemed the more sup- port we got the quicker we went broke.” “They gave it a good shot but it was just too much for the people who were trying to run it,’ King added, ‘‘I don’t think they were capable of continuing whether we through the planning process, which it started about a year and a haifago. Administrator Bryce Barnwall said that regional district has spent about $100,000 so far doing the project. “But we’re talking about mil- lions of dollars in the implemen- tation stage,’’ he said. Urgent as it is to get started on that solid waste management _plan, the Kitimat-Stikine regional district still has bigger piles of garbage to worry about. The district is running a deficit each year on dump operations — including the Thornhill dump — who » : o paid the rent or nat.”” Donahue says the society will continue to exist after the depot closes. ‘We're down on onc knee,’” he says. “That’s just a slip not a knockdown.’” They'll refocus their efforts on education, composting, and the other R’s —- reduce and reuse. ‘We're going to focus on awareness, education and things we can all do as individuals.” Both King and Donahue agree that any future recycling venture will have to be heavily subsidized and will have to cover the entire region. and the accumulated debt will hit $170,000 by the end of the year. Another $90,000 deficit was in- curred this year on dump costs, — and that annual deficit will hit six figures next year if something isn’t done soon. | The regional district can’t raise enough money to pay for the dumps because a bylaw puls a cap on how much residents can be taxed for its landfills. Although taxation is at the max- imum allowed, it’s not enough to cover expenses and directors hope to change the bylaw soon to allow higher taxes to pay down the debt. ‘You have to be big and you have to be funded and you have to be consoldiated,”” King said. ‘You can’t have Terrace doing one thing and Kitimat doing an- other thing and Smithers doing another thing.’” ‘What the recycling society was trying to do — 1 think we’re five years away from that. It was like trying to walk before you learned how to crawl.” The depot will send one last load of paper, cardboard and plastic south later this month. The remaining metal and glass stock- piled at the depot will be taken to the dump. They’ll try to change the bylaw by counterpetition. That means the bylaw change passes as long as fewer than five per cent of eligible voters petition against it. Tf more than five per cent oppose the change, it would have to go to referendum. Meanwhile, regional district directors have decided to try to cut costs by closing the dump on Thursdays and Fridays. That’s expected to save about $15,000, The dump will remain open Saturday to Wednesday. The Thomhill dump makes up more than a third of the total of the regional district’s dump costs. ses “Rick King Longer dump hours sought TERRACE — A local construction industry group has called on the city to extend the hours of operation at the landfill site. The landfill is open seven days a ~eek but only between the hours of noon and 5 p.m. And that, says Dominic Vendittelli, president of the Skeena Home Builders Association, {s causing problems for the group's 41 members. Vendittelli said the building trades, particular- ly those involved in roofing and renovations, found it difficult te schedule taking their loads to the dump. “Most typically, a crew starts at 8 am. and has alond for the dump by 9 a.m,’ he explained. Because it will be another three hours before the landfill is open, ‘‘we are being forced to stockpile and in some instances reload,” he added. The association therefore asked council to change the hours of operation to 9 am. 6p.m. daily, If that were not possible, Vendittelli asked a key to the gate lock be made available to the as- sociation. residents. fill operation. landfill. vision. The Skeena Builders complaint echoes those the city fielded during its recent survey of local Although 85 per cent of those asked were satisfied with garbage collection, a number qualified that support with criticism of the land- Description of dump opening hours ranged from ‘too inconvenient’’ to ‘‘terrible’’. The restricted hours were originally intro- duced after the Environment ministry changed the regulations In the city’s permit to operate a The new rules said the dump could only be open during those hours there was on-site super- Since that supervision cost money, the city de- cided to minimize the effect on the landfill opera- ting budget by Ilmiting opening hours. Council’s planning and public works com- next meeting. mittee will consider Vendittelli’s request at its The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 2, 1992 - Page AS White ribbon of many words By CHARLYNN TOEWS Charlynn Toews is a co- ordinator with the Ter- race Women’s Resource Centre, Wearing ten cents worth ‘of white ribbon on. your lapel the first week of De- cember won’t stop tragedies like the Montreal massacre of three years ago, where 14 young women were gunned down. Wearing ten cents worth of white ribbon won’t save your daughter from the same violence, or make a campus a safe place for her to study and prepare for adulthood and indepen- dence. It won’t stop the violent dealhs of more than 150 Ca- nadian women a year who are killed by spouses and ex-spouses. Nor will it build the transition houses where battered women and their children flock when violence makes their homes more dangerous than the streets. Wearing that bit of ribbon won't stop the attacks on fe- males from infancy to in- firmity who are sexually as- saulled by an intruder, or by their own neighbour or rela- live, or by a friend of a friend. It won't stop the escalat- ing images of. violence toward girls and women in pornographic § magazines and echoed in movies and TV. What wearing those small white ribbons will do is say: I object. It says: Such violence should~ not be shrugged off, ignored, seen as Somebody Else’s Prab- lem. Wearing a white ribbon says: You — young man — - stop that, you’re hurting her. It says: Listen, Ma’am, you don’t deserve this, you don’t have to take it, it’s not right. It says: Hey neigh- bour, 1 sometimes hear what’s going on. Please, get some heip. Wearing a bit of ribbon says: Sister, don’t look away, I see you’re in pain. It says: J am doing what I can, in my small way, starting now. Wearing ten cents worth of white ribbon on your lapel the first week of De- cember won't stop the violence. It can only begin to stop the violence. For the memory of those 14 young women, for their parents, for the students still living who are afraid to walk the few steps to their dorms alone, for our daughters, for ourselves, let’s begin. Ribbons are available free of charge at the Ter- race Women’s Resource Centre, 4542 Park. Calt 638-0228, And last week, the provin- cial government said it will spend $4 million on counselling services for women who are victims of violence and creating 10 new sexual assualt centres. learning how to read, The Start is for people pay for it. those things. Dump costs climbing The Thornhill dump costs a lot to run. The people who run it are planning to raise taxes to The recycling depot also costs a lot to run, When the depot began it recycled paper, and glass. It now costs the depot money to recycle all of cardboard, plastic, metal The people who nun the recycling depot are going to close it this month, because they have run out of money. You have two: more weeks to drop things off at the depot before it shuts down. rej Renting It is still hard to find a place to live, The vacancy rate is only 1.1 per cent. There has been little change in two years. It is easier in other cities. The vacancy ratein Kitimat is 8.6 per cent. Rents. are expensive. A two-bedroom apartment in Terrace costs $482 a month. Le