The city of Vancouver and
the Greater Vancouver
Regional District have a major
problem on their hands — gar-
bage disposal — that is reaching
near crisis proportions.

An enormous amount of gar-
bage is generated in the Lower
Mainland, amounting to about
1,000,000 tons of solid waste per
year. It’s disposed of in landfill
sites.

At present we have three ma-
jor landfills:

@ Burns Bog in Delta,

Harry

Rankin

operated by the city of Van-
couver and serving Van-
couver, Delta, White Rock
and U.B.C.;

@ Premier Street landfill in
North Vancouver District,
serving the city and district
of North Vancouver as well
as West Vancouver;

@ Coquitlam Terra Nova
landfill, operated by the
GVRD and serving Co-
quitlam, New Westminster,
Burnaby and Port Moody.

Surrey and Richmond have
their own landfills within their
own boundaries. The Co-
quitlam landfill must be closed
this year because it has already
reached its full capacity. Claims
have been made in North Van-
couver that the Premier Street

landfill is good for another 25

years, but the waste manage-

ment branch of the provincial
government says this site will be
full in three to five years, unless

a permit is-obtained to extend

the height and size of the landfill

and there are strong objections,
in the community to this. It is
claimed that the Burns Bog site
is also good for 25 years but
after what happened to a similar

New policy needed
on waste disposal

claim in North Vancouver, I’m
not so sure. The Surrey landfill
site is said to be good for
another seven to eight years,
while the future of the Rich-
mond site is in doubt because of
pollutants from the site entering
the Fraser River.

_ J am strongly of the opinion
that we have to look for alter-
native methods. For one thing, I
know of no municipality where
citizens want another garbage
dump in their municipal back
yard, or would even tolerate ad-

ding to the existing sites.
Secondly, it is already well es-
tablished that landfill sites are a
serious menace to the environ-
ment.

Two long term solutions are
incineration and re-cycling. In-
cineration can be used to pro-
duce heat for commercial pur-
poses and is widely used in
Europe, Japan and other areas
of the world. Re-cycling is
another method by means of
which we could reclaim and
reuse the enormous amount of
paper, glass and metals that ar
today being wasted. -

The need for this today is
widely recognized. Even the
waste management branch of
the provincial government in its
publication The Fraser points
out that ‘‘re-cycling and in-
cineration are ultimate solutions
to the waste disposal problem
and also make the greatest long
term economic sense’’.

Because it would probably
take up to five years to get such
projects under way, I think we
should make the necessary deci-
sions now without any more
waste of time.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS— DAN KEETON

VANCOUVER __

GARY ONSTAD ... need re-
newed mandate for education
reform.

PAT WILSON ... COPE com-
missioners ‘only real ‘opposi-
tion.’

BRUCE YORKE ... unity slate
sought with Harcourt.

COPE backing unity slate

The Committee of Progressive
Electors made the first public over-
ture towards labor-sponsored unity
with mayor Michael Harcourt and
his anticipated running mates in the
1982 civic elections, at the COPE
annual meeting Mar. 14.

The 150 people in the Ironwork-
ers Hall heartily endorsed an execu-
tive recommendation that COPE
file eight aldermanic candidates
this fall, leaving two seats open for
Harcourt’s slate. The assembly,
which also elected full slates for the
school and parks board, also form-
ally backed Harcourt in his bid for
a second term in office. .

COPE president Jim Quail told
members that the unity ticket,
which will see much improved fi-
nancial backing and publicity from
the Vancouver and District Labor
Council, is essential in the face of a
certain well-orchestrated, business-
backed campaign for the right-
wing Non-Partisan Association
this year.

While Harcourt’s forces have
yet to endorse formally the unified
campaign, which has been the sub-
ject of several recent meetings
among COPE, Harcourt and the
VDLC, Quail said “‘unity will likely
be achievable this year. Harcourt’s
people realize the critical import-
ance of a unified slate.”’

Harcourt’s running mates, yet to
be announced, will likely run as in-

dependents although they will re-
ceive the backing of the New
Democratic Party machine. Thela-
bor council has promised full back-
ing of the slate, including produc-
tion of an all-candidates leaflet, a
repeat of last election’s labor coun-
cil slate card, and an effort to pull
out votes on election day.

In a brief address alderman
Harry Rankin reiterated the im-
portance of a unified progressive
slate, noting that ‘the NPA and
their developer friends will put lots
into this campaign, particularly in
the mayoral race.’’ Former mayor
Jack Volrich, whom Harcourt nar-
rowly defeated in 1980, has an-
nounced he will run again with
NPA backing.

Rankin said this year’s election
will be fought over: the issues of
Bennett’s restraint bill — ‘‘mean-
ing restraint for those who have
very little’” — mega-projects such
as B.C. Place, housing, transit and
the issue of contracting-out of gar-
bage collection.

School trustee Gary Onstad said
the COPE majority elected to the
Vancouver School Board in 1980
inherited a school system in ‘‘bad
disrepair.”’

“COPE should be very proud of
our achievements,’’ Onstad said,
noting the establishment of a race
relations committee and co-ordina-
tor, the Native Indian Survival

School, special services for blind
children, and the hiring of multi-
cultural workers for immigrant
children.

‘‘But we need more than two
years in office to reform the school
system,”’ he said.

Parks commissioner Pat Wilson
said the election of herself and Lib-
by Davies to parks board has
meant ‘‘serious opposition for the
first time to NPA policies, and to
the watered down variety of
TEAM’s.””

The aldermanic slate includes in-
cumbents Rankin, Bruce Eriksen
and Bruce Yorke, joined by experi
enced candidates Carmella Alle-
vato, Sol Jackson, Delicia Crump, '
Jim Quail and Joe Arnaud.

School board candidates include —
incumbents’ Pauline Weinstein,
Mike O’Neill, Gary Onstad, Wes
Knapp and Philip Rankin, to bé
joined by newcomers Frank Fuller;
a retired teacher, and Sandra Ro-
gan, a former independent candi-
date. COPE regulars Peggy Chun
and Atiba Saunders complete the
school slate.

Parks board candidates include
Wilson and Davies, along wi
Connie Fogal, Peter Marcus, Mike
Crunick, Chris Brown and Tim
Louis. Louis, a newcomer 10
COPE, is a law student and leadet
of the B.C. Coalition of the Dis
abled.

he conduct of the U.S. Army around the world has

never been one to inspire feelings of virtue and honor,
but the half-time display put on by the U.S. Army Black
Berets unit at the Seattle Supersonics game two weeks ago
has prompted outrage and horror even among those Am-
ericans who aren’t given to criticizing the military.

A look over the letters that appeared in the Seattle Times
last week gives a glimpse of what happened during the
half-time entertainment organized by the management of
the Seattle Kingdome. Here’s how one man described it:

“A group of young men from the Black Berets U.S.
Army unit at Fort Lewis put on a demonstration of hand-
to-hand combat. It included, complete with red dye, goug-
ing the eyes from an unconscious assailant and throwing
them to the floor. After this, an artificial arm, complete
with dangling bones and tissue, was ripped from another
unconscious assailant, used as a club against several addi-
tional assailants, and then thrown across the floor.”’

Apparently most of the show was like that and even in-
cluded simulated bomb blasts which resulted in flaming
debris being blown up into the stands.

Two other readers drew the same grim conclusion that
thousands of Canadians would probably draw from the
performance. ‘‘What is even more upsetting than the fact
that such a tasteless demonstration took place,”’ they com-
mented, “‘is that this was an example of our military.

“*To believe that we train our fighting men to dismem-
ber and mutilate the enemy after death is appalling. . . To
think that our tax dollars are going to this kind of military
training is frightening and makes us wonder what else is
occurring under the guise of defence.”’

Indeed. And given My Lai, some were no doubt won-
dering whether this was what could be expected should
U.S. troops ever be let loose in El Salvador.

PEOPLE AND ISSUE

he hundreds of people throughout the province whose

contributions to the Tim Buck-Norman Bethune Edu-
cational Centre totalled more than $120,000 will be grati-
fied to know that their money not only helped to raise a
building from ashes — it also raised an award-winning
building.

The centre, which was finally completed last year, has
been awarded the 1981 Design Award of Merit by the On-
tario Masons’ Relations Council. The council is made up
of the Ontario Provincial Conference of the International
Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, the Ontario
Region of the Clay Brick Association of Canada, the On-
tario Concrete Block Association and the Ontario Mason-
ry Contractors Association.

The award, which is given annually, was presented Feb.
18 to architect Peter Turner, contractor Petros Dritsidis
and to the Centre’s president Oscar Kogan and secretary
John Bizzell, in a ceremony sponsored by the Ontario Ar-
chitects Association and the Masonry Council of Ontario.

The new building was designed by the architects as a rep-
lica of the century-old building that had occupied the site
before it was destroyed by arsonists in June, 1980. The

total cost of construction was $833,391 of which $715,895 _

was raised in donations and pledges.
: * * * * *

s the receni editions of both the Vancouver Sun and the
Globe and Mail will attest, the awful reality of nuclear
war has finally »egun to penetrate the thinking of even the
editors and pu dlishers of the commercial press of this

tions has begun to grow. Events are scheduled for Apr. 24

country. But even before that happened, hundreds of
peace activists were organizing in an effort to curb the arms
race and avert the ultimate catastrophe. ‘As’a result, the
number of conferences, meetings, rallies and demonstra-

and June 12 with a major conference having just con-
cluded.

.To that list we can add yet another. It is a one-day con-
ference, entitled A Day for Survival and is slated for Apr-
10, 10. a.m. to 4 p.m. at Capilano College in North Van-
couver. Speakers include, Dr. Jesse Chiang, from the Uni-
versity of Seattle, economist Dr. Emil Bjarnason, college
instructor Ed Lavalle and Dr. Dorothy Gorensky of the
Physicians for Social Responsibility. There will also be 4
special panel on action with Carmela Allevato, president
of the B.C. Peace Council, Joseph Roberts of the Cana-
dian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and North Van-
couver district alderman Emie Crist. It is sponsored by the
North Shore Coalition for Disarmament and the Capilano
College Students’ Union.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
: Associate Editor — DAN KEETON \
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada $14 one year; $8 for six months.
All other countries, $15 one year. .

Second class mail registration number 1560

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 19, 1982—Page 2