Segislative Lei igye
— Parliament
a Victoria Be

t
i
4
r

| VEV 1X4.

|GET READY TO BEHAVE: BYLAW |
ENFORCEMENT IS HERE — A5

ary ,
Ulicdings
OT Ney

S

TEN

Testing ©
lab fee a
charge for

nothing

by Tod Strachan
TERRACE — The city has been
“hit with a number of new and
increased licensing and monitoring
rate hikes in recent months, Some
have been explained by the billing
agency and some have not.

City council may have to address
at least one of those situations
soon, however. They owe the B.C.
Research Corporation several hun-
dred dollars, that they have so far
refused to pay, but the company
wants their money. The annual fee

levied by B.C. Research comes to’

$726 per year and the unpaid bills
go back to November, 1988.

It’s easy to explain why the city
doesn’t want to pay B.C, Research.
It’s covered in the government’s

own March, 1990, B.C. Auditor.

General’s annual report. In 1971
the province established its own
Environmental Laboratory. From
there, technicians tested waste
samples; in the city’s case, samples
of effluent from the sewage treat-
ment plant.

This government-run operation
fell to privatization in January,
1990, however, when most of the
assets were sold to Zenon Environ-
mental Inc. for $850,000. A
five-year service agreement signed
at that time by the Ministry of
Environment and Zenon called for
Zenon to provide laboratory ser-
vices to the province for a mini-
mum fee of $2.8 million a year.

It didn’t take long for the
government to realize, though, that

they needed an external quality

assurance program, and without
going to tender the job was given
to B.C. Research.

An interim three-month contract
was signed, and in 1989 a

— Continued on page Ai4

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1990
Vol. 6, Issue No. 36

Phone 635-7840
Fax 635-7269

Glen Kerr (above) with Doc and Denny placed second in the Skeena Valley F Fall Fair Heavy Horse Pull. Doc
and Denny pulled 3,635 pounds, 913 pounds more than their combined weight. First place went to Charlie
Houlden, who coaxed Major and May into a pull of 3,855 pounds, 1,345 pounds over the combined weight
of the team. More Fall Fair photos and coverage on pages B8 and B9, complete results next week.

Geothermal drilling may start
next spring at Lakelse Lake

Portable drilling rigs could move
into the area south of Lakelse Lake
as early as next spring if the
government approves a Vancouver
company’s proposal to explore the
geothermal energy potential that
may lic under the ground near the
Mount Layton Hot Springs.

The Ministry of Energy, Mines
and Petroleum Resources called for

proposals to explore the area last
summer and announced the results
Aug. 31. Only one company, Fair-
bank Engineering of Vancouver,
responded. Fairbank is now in the
process of working up detailed
plans for exploring the area, and
company president Brian Fairbank
expects the documents to be ready
for examination within two weeks.

Fairbank says it's risky in terms
of capital investment. "It’s very
akin to mineral exploration," he
said in an interview yesterday, but
added that he thinks the potential
is there in the Lakelse area and
perhaps throughout the region.

Fairbank is not a stranger to this
area, having been up here several
times in the past five years with

the Geologic Survey of Canada.
"There’s been quite a lot of data
gathered on the surface, flow rates
and spring chemistry, that sort of
thing, but not much underground,"
Fairbank thinks the valley between
Kitimat and Terrace is a "graben"
structure, meaning the underground
strata has been pulled apart in the

— Continued on page A14