Going,going... 7

Global warminghasthe =
northwest’s postcard glaciers ina
steady retreat\NEWS A110 |

‘The healer

Shames’ flames

| How a counsellor hopes to help
residential school survivors in
Terrace \COMMUNITY B1

“} Local downhill racers score a pile
| of medals on their home |
mountain\SPORTS B5

VOL. 13 NO. 48
WEDNESDAY

March 7, 2001
-wwwibcclassified.com

$1.00 pus 7¢ GST
{$1.10 plus 8¢ GST
outside of the Terrace area)

Deals loom

Aid packages for SCI,

Interfor may save jobs
By JEFF NAGEL
DEALS are ia the works to give both
Interfor and Skeena Cellulose five-
year aid packages that would include
the ability to export raw logs. ,
Job Protection Commissioner Eric
van Soeren said those are among at
least nine new economic plans he’s
crafting that could potentially keep
more loggers working in the northwest
despite very low [umber prices.
Two deals are already complete —

for Kispiox Forest Products and Tri-
umph Timber in Prince Rupert — but
ones for Skeena Cellulose, Interfor,
and a renewal of West Fraser’s plan
will affect the most jobs in the region.

All the negotiations underway stem
from forests minister Gordon Wilson’s
Northwest Forest Plan, which in De-
cember cleared the way for increased
log exports and other assistance in re-
cognition of the industry’s unique diffi-
culties in this region.

Van Soeren cautions lumber prices
are so poor the new plans may not be
a cure-all.

“At times of the cycle no matter
what anybody does you can’t avoid the
fact that the market just isn’t paying
enough for lumber,” he said.

“If the cost of producing a 2x4 is
way more than you could ever hope to
sell it for there is going to be some
downtime.”

But he said the plans may shift the
threshold at which a company is for-
ced to shut down, meaning it could
operaie longer while prices are falling
and re-start operations sooner when
prices begin to rise.

“The whole point of these plans is

lo increase the revenues and lower the
costs as much as possible,” he said.
“After that it’s up to the market
really.”

A deal for Interfor is very close, van.

Soeren said. .

The company wants to export 30
per cent of the logs it cuts.

That would allow its Terrace-based
loggers to cut 135,000 cubic metres
more than otherwise planned for 2001
on Princess Royal Island, said Interfor
area manager Peter Scharf.

He said that will protect the jobs of
100-120 loggers at Interfor-affiliated

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to allow raw log exports

Bear Creek Contracting. Most of [nter-
for’s timber is barged to its mills in the
lower mainland, while some is traded.

“It’s a back breaker for us if we
don’t get that economic plan,” Scharf
said.

But van Soeren said negotiations
toward an economic plan for Skeena
Cellulose are “more complicated”.

“The unions have to agree and
we've got the truck loggers wanting to
have some say,” van Soeren said.

Three different unions represent
Skeena Cellulose sawmills - the IWA

Continued Pg. A2

Vote urged

planned

911 service

By JENNIFER LANG

HPutting out fires

CINDY HANSEN didn't let a little rain put a damper on the is one of six women who volunteer their time. For the full story
on other fire fighting women see A5, =

Thornhill volunteer fire department's practice March 1. Hansen

_ though the board could opt for a |

instead.

Guides cry foul over treaty curbs

SOME ANGLING guides used to
fishing in Nisga’a territory have
been barred from certain rivers
there.

Westcoast Fishing Adventures
co-owner Gill McKean says he
had planned to take a group of
eight Americans heli-fishing on
wildemess rivers such as the Ishk-
heenickh in April for about
$40,000.

But McKean has discovered
his new angling guide operating
plan from the provincial govern-
ment doesn’t allow that.

It bars him from Dragon Lake
and the Iskheenickh, Kincolith
and Iknouk Rivers — areas where
his six-employee Terrace-based
operation have fished the past two
years.

“They have taken four rivers
away from us thal we market and

fish on every year,” he said. “That
takes a lot of water away from us
and is completely unfair.”

The Nisga’a treaty says the
province must not issue new: an-
gling guide licences on rivers in
Nisga’a lands without Nisga’a Li-
sims Government consent.

Although angling guides who

‘have operated there for several

years aren’t affected, guides
newer to the territory are being
barred by the province for now,
confirmed environment ministry
regional fish and wildlife manager
Reid White.

But White said the environ-

ment ministry is asking the

Nisga’a government to consent to
allowing affected guides to conti-
nue this year, and possibly a year
at a time after that.

“We’re asking for their consent

to make these amendments,” he
said. “Once they’ve given their
consent you could expect that the
next year and subsequent years
that guide would have that oppor-
tunity in their plan.”

White said he was hopeful a
timely decision would be made
adding the Nisga’a “seemed quite
sincere in turning their minds to
the fisheries issue.”

Nisga’a government president

Joe Gosnell said he couldn’t guar-
antee the matter will be dealt
with in time for guides who have
trips booked for April.
’ He said Nisga’a leaders, who
were just elected in November,
have been busy organizing their
new government and guiding
operations hadn’t emerged as a
big priority.

“We're just barely getting off

the ground,” Gosnell said, “We’re
irying to cover as many areas as
humanly possible.”

Nisga’a government spokesman
Eric Grandison said he was sur-
prised guides who operate in the
Nass haven’t consulted the treaty
and attempled to deal with the
issue sooner.

He noted the final treaty has
heen available for two and a half
years, and the agreement-in-prin-
ciple on which it’s based was re-
leased five years ago.

McKean said he has been un-
able to obtain a copy of the treaty.

And he says he may guide in
Nisga’a territory without approval,

“I'm going to be going fishing
wherever 1 want whenever |
want,” McKean said. “They can
come and get me and arrest me
and tell me I'm a criminal.”

LES WATMOUGH is leaning in favour of a referendum
on regional 911 service.

Watmough, director for electoral area E (Thornhill) in
the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District, has long been in
favour of 911,

A new consultant’s report says the service could be
put in place for all communities in the regional district
for about $1.2 million, not including almost $500,000 in
annual operating costs.

The regional district board
has the power to decide whether
to introduce 911 service, al-

counter petition or referendum

“Let’s go to referendum,”
Watmough said. “That way the
people who pay will have their |.
say.” ;

Introducing the service here §
would cost taxpayers with a
home assessed at $100,000. in
the range of about $22 a year for
the first five years. - ‘

After that, the cost per tax-
payer at that same assessment
would drop to about $16 a year, according to preliminary
estimates drawn up by regional district officials based on
the feasibility study.

“It still looks to me as favourable,” Watmough said.
“] hope there is no one else on the board who decides
they don’t like it. I think for the money we’re going to be
spending, it's a valuable service, especially for the out-
lying areas.’

Waimough said the regional district will charge the
same tax rate lo residents for 911 service, regardless of
where they live.

Under the scenario proposed by consultants Dick

Les Watmough

m@ Town councils like 911 plan so far.
Page A16

Wells and John Tones, Terrace’s RCMP detachment
would be the region’s primary dispatch centre.

Calls for fire assistance wauld be transferred to a re-
gional fire dispatch centre at the Terrace Fire Depart-
ment.

Ambulance calls would be transferred to Kamloops,
which is the case today, but with one huge difference:
the caller's address will be simultaneously displayed on
the dispatch system there,

Continued Page A2

Plan doesn’t preserve enough, club says

By JEFF NAGEL
THERE AREN’T enough protected
areas being set aside from logging and
mining in the just-concluded Kalum
land-use plan, according to a Sierra
Club forest campaigner.

Smithers-based Merran Smith
called the new areas to be protected in
this region “very minimal.”

Kalum Land and Resource Man-
agement Plan (LRMP) participants
agreed to set aside an additional 0.36
per cent of the Jand base in this re-
gion, increasing the area protected to
18.62 per cent. Most of the new pro-
tected areas are small anchorages
along the Douglas Channel.

Some plan members still want three

*t

More areas protected, adding nearly
three per cent more, and that request
is unresolved.

Smith said even that request for ad-
ditional protected land doesn’t go far
enough to satisfy. global demands for
protection of B.C.’s coastal forests.

“What's being put forward is not
adequate protection in the coastal
temperate rainforest to withstand the
scrutiny of the international eye.” she
said. “Just like the world is asking us
to take care of panda bears and things

_ like that, they’re asking us to take

care of these unique areas in B.C.” .
She wasn't specific in how much

That, she said, depends on the de-
gree to which logging becomes more
sensitive to the environment. ,

“If we're going to have a lighter
touch on the land outside the protected
areas, then we could protect less,” she
said: “But if we're going to do our sta-
tus quo industrial forest model then we
need to protect more. We need to
change one or the other.”

Smith said the Sierra Club has
“greal respect” for the local people
who have worked on the plan. -

But she’ said the scientific under-

standing of habitat protection is chan:

spe nuch ging all the time.
more land in the region should be pre-
’ served. . OE a TE

~ She said one study last year con-
cluded every federal park has seen the

loss of at least one species since it
was created.

“Either our parks have to be bigger
or we have to change wha! we do out-
side of the parks,” she said. “We can’t
just create fittle istands of protection.
That’s what we hoped would create
protection, but in fact it’s not.”

Smith said she worries people who
worked on the plan for eight or nine
years didn’t have that information
when they concluded it.

She. wants the province to protect
the valleys the plan has highlighted,
but then also agree to a review of
other areas on the basis of new infor-
mation and demand from international
forest product customers.

The Sierra Club and other groups
promote a concept they call eco-
system-based management.

That would involve organizing a
team of experts, including scientists
and those with local knowledge to cre- .
ate a forest management plan based
on conservation and innovative ways
to diversify local economics.

“What we've done in the past isn’t
working,” she added. ,

Onc of the key valleys in the region |
Smith says should also be preserved —
the 40,000-hectare Kowesas River wa-
tershed ‘at the end of Gardner Canal ~
may be subject to joint management
system between. West Fraser Timber
and Haisla natives,