Problems at Farmers Market city over a permanent location\NEWS A10 Farmers Market argues with the Teenagers get artistic Five bedrooms were brought back to life at Transition a House\COMMUNITY B1 One stroke at a time Beginner kayakers fire it up. at Onion Lake\ SPORTS B4 WEDNESDAY AUGUST 26, 1998 SCI won’t spend until prices rise Commitment to save firm ‘not wavering’ By JEFF NAGEL SKEENA CELLULOSE’s planned $170 million modernization of its Prince Rupert pulp mili is on hold and will not go ahead until pulp markets recover. There had been hope that pulp prices were on the rise in June, but that evaporated as the financial crisis in Asia grew worse over the summer, hammering .commodity prices again. Now officials for the company and its owners — the province and the TD Bank — are confirming the continuing delays in going ahead with the improvements are part ofa plan. “Basically the cap ex projects won’t be- gin until pulp markets stabilize and prices goup,”’ employment and investment minis- try spokesman Don Zadravec said Friday. “You want ta be fairly dilligent in terms of when you spend that much moncy so it isn’t spent frivolously.” Skeena Cellulose spokesman Don McDonald confirmed the company has a target price in mind that it wants to see pulp . tise to before significant amounts of money are spent. “Yeah. I guess there’s a magic number that we're looking at right now,’ McDonald said. ‘‘T can’t tell you what that number is.”’ Manitoba hunts for Vermette IT MIGHT have been Kevin Vermette, but Brandon police can't be sure. The sighting of Kitimat’s most wanted criminal Aug. 5 by three different Brandon residents had Kitimat’s [-. RCMP detachment hoping =e the triple‘murderer “was , finally found. Vermette, 43, is the only suspect in the July 12, 1997 murders of Mark ‘Teves, Michele Mauro and David Nunes and the attempted murder of Donny Oliveira at Hirsh Creek Parkin Kitimat. There is a $17,500 reward for Vermetie’s arrest, A Brandon man walked into the RCMP detachment, and told police he thought he rec- ognized Vermette by a blue cat tattoo with the word “lucky” underneath it at a city business. When police investigated, two other people remembered seeing Vermette there the same day. According to Sgt. Carol Fisher in Brandon, each per- son said they were “highly confident” the man they saw was Vermette, Fisher said here have been a few other passible sightings in-Portage la Prairie and other rural Manitoba locations. But Set, Greg Funk of the Kitimat RCMP says. a num- ber of “highly contident” Vermette sightings have been reported all over North America, including 42 in the US after Vermette was fea- tured on America’s Most Wanted Aug. 15. “This sighting canks no higher than the 200 other pos- sible sightings of Vermette we've seen,” said Russ Grabb an RCMP media liaison in Vancouver, “At this point, that sighting is still unconfirmed.” No one has seen Vermette in Brandon since early August, but that hasn't stopped the Brandon police from working with media to blanket south- em Manitoba. He added company analysts are more in- terested in seeing an overall trend in prices rather than attaining a particular target. “Pulp prices are way off right now,” McDonald said, “'They’re much worse than we expected them to be, We’re not sceing a levelling and then a rise.” Slowing the start of the three- to five-year expenditure plan is a way of limiting the company’s financial exposure. “Taking a bit of a delay up front is worthwhile because you don’t want to spend $170 million frivolously and not get the biggest bang for your buck,” McDonald added, Asked if there’s any wavering in the pro- i Touching up the new mural HIRE-A-STUDENT coordinators, Alison Chase and Natalie Dickson help artist Jose Brand, 20, finish the mural behind The Bargain Shop. The new mural commemorates the 30th anniversary of Hire-A-Student, It is a gift from Chase and Dickson to thank the community for its support in getting youth working in Terrace. Supplies were donated by the Bargain Shop and the Beautification Society. vince’s commitment to proceed with the restructuring plan laid out earlier this year, Zadravec said no, *There’s still a commitment to it, but it’s dependent on market conditions,’ he said. ‘I's being assessed on an ongoing basis and we'll have to see where it rolls out.’’ While the work bas been delayed, compa- ny officials have been carrying out an ex- tensive review of the plans, which are aimed at cutting labour and operating costs. The $170 million pian earlier this year was being held up by SCI’s owners, the province and the TD Bank, as the key cle- Continued Page A10 mayor Talstra. divisive. deal on July 15. cal way.”’ bitterness between neigh- bours., “After provincial people jump up and down and _arguc about it theyll go back to the Lower Mainland and Victoria, We here in the north will be left with pos- what bappens,’’ he said. ‘We're the ones who are going to have io clean up any potential disasters after- wards,”’ Talstra added, ‘‘So we in the north have to think about two or three sieps ahead.”? He said those people demanding a referendum are also out to defeat the deal as itstands, ‘If that happens, then what?’? Talstra asked. “They aren't necessarily coming up with alternatives and when they do suggest allernatives, they suggest ones that non-Nisga'a sociely can impose on the Nisga’a.”’ “‘When we say that we are still in a condescending Mixed fish returns puzzle biologists mode, And I can tell you that’s not going to work.”’ The Nisga’a aren’! going to go away, he noted, and they’re not going to agree to sibly a mess depending on. By CHRISTIANA WIENS SOMETHING, somewhere is hurt- ing pink, coho and sockeye salmon but not steelhead. “They (pinks) are thin and in poor condition,” says David Peacock, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) stock asscss- ment biologist And they’re the same here as in Bristo! Bay and southeast Alaska, meaning the influence originates in the ocean rather than freshwater streams and rivers. Peacock’s best estimate ou their condition was that it’s a result of warner ocean water. So warm that there’s also a lot less of thetn than expected. “Pinks are coming in terrible; way, way below target,’’ he sald. As of Aug. 16, the Tyee test fishery at the mouth of the Skeena estimated 400,000 pinks 325,000 less than the minimum target. From Aug, 12-18 the coho index too, has come in well below the ex- pected. ‘‘They’re better than '90s averages but well below ruts in "60s and ’70s,’’ said Peacock. He anticipated a poor return on sockeye stocks — but says those runs are also about 25 per cent worse than expected. He said all catches are fow but Nass counts are significant. “They usually catch an average 270,000 sockeye with fish wheels but right now about 185,000 sock- eye coming up that river.”’ But if coho, pink, arid sockeye are suffering, the reverse is true for steelhead and chum. “Iv’s unusual that three stocks have come in so low but others have been exceptional,'’’ said Peacock, adding the differences are a mystery. As of Aug. 19, steelhead stocks are in good condition, demonstrat- ing the best escapement levels in 41 years of the test fisheries’ opera- tion, he said, ‘“They’re fat and happy, they've obviously been in an excellent environment.’’ Likewise, chum numbers are “very close to the best we've ever secn”’ with strong retums through- out the northwest and Alaska, something else just because non-natives want it that way, “Ten years down the road we'd have another referendum on something very, very similar to what we have now or worse, we'll have a stalemate or no 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST VOL. 11 NO:.20 Don McDonald Don’t mess with treaty, warns Referendum on treaty would be ‘too divisive’ — Talstra By JEFF NAGEL SOUTHERN politicians who want to scrap over the Nisga’a treaty are playing politics with the future of the northwest, says Terrace mayor Jack Talstra said he doesn’t want to see a province-wide referendum on the treaty — as demanded by Liberal leader Gordon Campbell — because it would be too And he says Premier Glen Clark is also guiity of © upping the political ante over the treaty by showing - up at the Terrace Inn when negotiators concluded the . é “He politicized it,’’ Talstra said. ‘‘I don’t ap- preciate any political leader trying to use it ina politi-~ ; Talstra said provincial politicians who make the treaty a hot issue don’t have to live here afterwards and deal with « Jack Talstra m Most city council- lors like treaty, op- pose referendum. Page Ali a Disgruntled Nisga’a could opt out of treaty. Page: A3 : m Overlap issue simmers after con- frontation on land. Page A9 ueaty at all and a lot of strife,'’ Talstra predicted, “Tf that were to happen I would blame all the senior politicians who are raising these issucs without thinking down the road,” he said, ‘‘But of course theyll be gous, They'll be retired, sipping tea in the Empress Hotel in Vic- toria, And we'll be left on the front ilnes.”