Tale of two cities Is Terrace out to steal Thornhill’s water? We give our take on: amalgamation\NEWS A5 Demand for Diana Super season A music store is overwhelmed by demand for the Princess Diana. tribute CD\COMMUNITY B1 Super BM of Terrace Men’s Soccer prove they’re the best in finals\SPORTS B6 WEDNESDAY October 1, 1997 By JEFF NAGEL HUNDREDS of sawmill workers returned to work Monday at Skeena Cellulose. But the company could be in bankruptcy by Friday if unionized pulp mill workers in Prince Rupert don’t approve last-minute changes to the tentative deal reached Sept. 12. That result would spell a long-term — pos- sibly permanent — shutdown of the Prince Rupert pulp mill and end any hope logging contractors and suppliers here hold out of getting the millions of dollars they’re owed. Word the deal might be unravelling came last Friday when the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada local 4 accused the province of trying to claw back five per cent of the equity promised the union, Provincial officials had promised to pass on a 20 per cent equity stake in the company to the pulp workers. But late last week they said the province is negotiating with the banks to inject more money into the operations. . In order to secure the extra investment, the province wants to keep five per cent of the equity it had promised the pulp mili workers, leaving employees with a 15 per. cent stake. To offset the five per cent takeback, the province proposed removing a previously agreed three-year five per cent wage defer- ral at the pulp mill. A 10 per cent wage roll- back would remain in place. Employment and investment minister Dan Mitler said the province has effectively put another $26 million into the deal to “make up for the five per cent wage deferral and to fully protect the pulp mill employees’ . benefits, which the banks had also viewed as subject toa 10 percent cut. Miller said the TD and Royal banks have also introduced text in the final agreement that would make controversial changes to the pulp workers’ collective agreement on full flexibility and contracting out more probable. “They're not tying: us to Fletcher Challenge, the target bargainer,” said PPWC vice-president Frank De Bartolo. “What they’re saying is if they can find a pulp mill in B.C. with full flexibility and contracting out, we get il.” The union is incensed by both that provi- sion and the equity takeback and as of Tuesday were refusing to even take the new " proposals to a vote of its membership. “A deal is a deal and we have a deal,” said the PPWC’s Kal Sandhu. Miller, in an interview with the Standard Tuesday morning, said he has lost almost ali hope of resolving the impasse by Friday in time fo avert bankruptcy. Coopers and Lybrand officials went back to court Tuesday to get an extension to Friday of the company’s court-approved creditor protection. Failure of the PPWC membership to vote in favour of the deal by Friday is expected to result in a petition that day to put the company into bankruptcy. Miller blamed both the union and the banks for the collapse of the deal. “We appear to be at an absolute impasse,” Miller said. “I don’t think there’s a way out.” Miller said the government was trying to explain the changed financial terms of the deal to’ the union when the contract lan- guage issue arose. “We were trying to work through that when the banks presented a modified col- lective agreement to the union that again jammed the union.” But he said the union should vote on the — govermment’s financial package and attempt to address the contract issue later. “Everyone seems to think they’ve got the luxury of time here but they don’t,” Miller said. “Everyone's fiddling here and Rome’s bloody burning.” Miller said that with the union refusing to listen to the government and the banks taking the hardest line possible, he no long- er believes those two parties are serious about reaching a deal. -“I refuse to be optimistic. f don’t know what could happen to change the situation,” Miller said. “Words can’t describe how : frustrated J am.” If there’s no deal with the union and no vote approving changes by Friday and bankruptcy results, the sawmills and log- ging operations are expected to continue operations for the short term. . We'd like to think solid wood opera- tions, having started up, would continue despite the bankruptcy,” Hyatt said. “But ae 7 BACK TO WORK: Truckers like Don Hull and Sons Con- tracting’s Parkash Takhar were back in action last Thurs- day after Skeena Cellulose called its contractors back Prince eae and promised sawmill operat That's a load of Alaskan sawlogs being brought in from Rupert to tide sawmills through supply shortages. — 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST VOL. 10 NO. 25° Skeena Cel back on the brink again ons would start this’ weak. the pulp mill would be unlikely to reopen during the course of the bankruptcy.” And he noted the sawmills would eventu- ally need a place to send their pulp logs and chips. “It’s not a long term solution to operate solid wood without the pulp mill or some -way of dealing with the chips. That’s the impracticality you have over the long term.” The most dire loss for the Terrace area under bankruptcy would be the wiping out of more than $100 million in debt the com- pany owes unsecured creditors, many of them inland logging contractors. If the union does vote yes to the revised deal by Friday, then the monitors are expect- ed to appear before the court again Friday to extend until Nov. 30 the deadline for a detailed restructuring plan. The banks and government agree that $40 million in interim financing is needed to start up the puip mill, according to Eric van Soeren of the Job Protection Commission. He said the province will guarantes a 40 per cent share of that, amounting to $16 mil- lion if the company fails after a startup of the pulp mill. Fewer teen moms in school Birth control effort may have cut teen births By CRIS LEYKAUF THE NUMBER of teen mothers at- tending high school here has dropped by 50 per cent this year. The. PACES (Parents And Chil- dren Educational School) program has been a favoured option for high school studenis who get pregnant, have a baby and want to continue their high school education. The school district built an $507,000 building adjacent to Caledonia Sr. Secondary in 1995 to house the program’s combination classroom/daycare. Students can leave their infants at the PACES daycare, while attend- ’ ing Caledonia full time, or can take high school courses at PACES. Just 18 teen mothers are enrolled there this year, down from 30 to 40 last year. Numbers have been as high as 60 in previous years. PACES teacher Kim Tobin ex- pected lower numbers this year when she realized that for the first ‘time no high students she knew of were pregnant at the end of the school year. Enrollment is down in schools across the district, School district officials have attributed that drop to the Skeena Cellulose crisis. However Tobin says she doesn’t think the lower enrollment numbers ut PACES have anything to do with the sawmill shutdown. Instead she speculates increased awareness and the new Planned Parenthood ‘clinic might have “played a role. Teen moms from the PACES pro- gram regularly talk to students at the other schools, telling them the reality of raising a child while in high school. Money problems, a lack of free time, and having to rely on their parents are among the biggest dif- ficulties of being a teen parent. That message, coupled with the new Flanned Parenthood clinic, seems to be making an impact. Planned Parenthood opened a clinic in Terrace about a year ago. The clinic, which runs Tuesday nights, offers counselling, cheap birth control and free condoms. Andrew Scruton, director of in- struction for the school district, also credits Planned Parenthood. There aren’t any statistics avail- able for 1997 yet, but he says in 1996 there were 48 teens who had babies. That compares to an aver- age of 60 babies born a year to teen moms in the past. “T don’t think there is much doubt that yes, the birth rate is down,”’ says Scruton. When asked about the possibility _ that teen moms were simply drop- ping out of school, Scruton said he didn’t think that was the case. PACES has a good reputation, he said. However, he couldn’t account for teen moms who became preg- nant after dropping out of school. | Looking: at the evidence that’s available, Scruton said it appears Planned Parenthood is making an impact. | One of the reasons for bringing the clinic to Terrace was the high teen birth rate here. When asked if Planned Parent- Continued Page. A2 GAS WAR: The price for unleaded self-serve gas- oline was 56.9 cents per litre around town on Fri- day, about five cents less than usual. . Gas prices fall at local pumps TERRACE RESIDENTS can’t complain about the price of gasoline these days. A pood old fashioned gas war erupted last week and pric- es have dropped to Jower-mainland levels. As of yesterday, a litre of gas in the city was going for 53.9 cents per litre. That’s down from 61.9 cents, where it had been for many, many months. ; It works out to a savings of about $4 on a normal $30 fill- up. Gas station managers won't say much about the drop in prices, other than (hat they are just being competitive. But most also point across the tracks to the new superstore when asked who started the war. = As for just how far the prices could drop, that’s just about anybody’s guess. an S “I don’t know if there’s an end in sight,” says Shawn Olson, Mohawk manager. sel Shroom prices down, season doubted PINE MUSHROOM pickers and buyers have their fingers crossed in hopes of a good season yet to come. oo But there simply hasn’t been the great volume of past years and competition from the States is driving prices down.- This past week prices for the much sought after top grade fungus have fluctuated between $8- 12/lb. And the volume of mushrooms being shipped to Vancouver is significantly lower than this time last year. Only about 50 baskets are being flown out a day — that’s compared to 300 or 400 last year. But pine mushroom pickers who. endured the first early drought, should expect to see a resur- gence of the much sought after buttons. “Sometimes the mushrooms start in July, but then they burn out and go back to spores,” said local mushroom buyer Lionel Sears. He says that this week shoutd see the beginning of the normal season. Peter Weeber, a buyer from Hazelton, agrees. “The season had just about run its course, but there seems to be a resurgence,” said Weeber. “A lot of small buttons are coming in — we might have another three or four weeks.” Weeber admits that he’s not infallible but says that this has been a very unusual season. It’s only once in 15 years that the season begins in the mid- dle of July. “Those who came a month early have left a month early,” he said about the migrant pickers who converge at the camps near Cranberry Junction and Nass Camp. Meanwhile a petition circulating in the Hazelton area in support of preserving mushroom ’ sites from logging has gathered nearly 300 signatures. However, the forest ministry says planners do take botanical values into consideration. Earlier this month the ministry released a report on the effects of timber harvesting on mushrooms in a Kispiox Valley research forest. Research indicates that pine mushrooms usually grow in a blanket of deep moss between trees aged 100-150 years old. Gaps in the forest cover larger than 160 feet square are not good mushroom growing territory, researchers found. The ministry said it would work in cooperation with the public to better manage the pine mush- roam resource. Possible strategies include monitoring of har- vesting, and considering the mushroom resource at landscape and planning levels. But the report points out it’s hard for planers to avoid logging mushroom sites when piskers keep ’ their sites a secret.