Kitimat picked |Repap buys Seer at . _ Children's Hospital for gas plant |U.S. wood By Malcolm Baxter UP TO 80 jobs will be created in Kitimat when Pac-Rim Alas kan logs mI lled he re LNG Ine, completes a massive $1.4 billion liquefied natu- REPAP B.C. has turned to importing Alaskan timber because ral gas (LNG) plant and pipeline in 1999, a of the high cost of logging here. The company this week picked Kitimat over Princce The company has bought four barge loads of what it calls Rupert as the location for a plant shipping 3.5 million ton- prime spruce sawlogs from Alaska and is processing them at its nesof LNGio Koreaeach year mills in Terrace and Camaby near Hazelton, Approximately 3,000 man-years of employment will be “Guess what? Logs are cheaper in Alaska than they are in created in constructing the facility but it’s not yet known B.C.,”. said -Dertick Curtis. Repap woods: manager for Carnaby, how much of that will be in Kitimat.. a - Kitwanga and Smithers, J The plant will be built at Bish Creek, 12km from Kitimat Curtis said skyrocketing stumpage fees and operating costs on Douglas Channel. That land belongs to Kitamaat ]. make it cheaper. for B.C. companies to leave the province in Village and negotiations for its use have started. search of timber, Some go.as far afield as Saskatchewan, and, in The gas would come from northeastem B.C. via a 500- -| the case of Repap, the Yukon and Alaska. kilometre pipeline fram Summit Lake. "Tt tells: you that Something’ S 3 wrong with the system,” Curtis Local employment hinges on a tight construction sched- said. ule leading up to the 1999 opening and on the effects win- Repap’s operation in Terrace baught four barge loads - at ter weather might have, Pac-Rim vice president Wayne 18,000. cubic metres each - west'of Anchorage ¢ on the Kenai Stanley said last week. Penninsula. Some of the plant’s components will be manufactured The first barge arrived in September and went entirely to down south, barged up and assembled on the Bish Creek Terrace, The second docked this month, with the cargo split bet- site. The Lower Mainland also offers convenient access to ween Camaby and.Terzace. : fabrication shops and a qualified labour pool. Pat Ogawa, vice-president and chief forester for Repap 8.C., Bot Stanley noted the amount of off-site work wouldn’t said the campany reaches out to Alaska and.the Yukon because really change anything as far as employment opportunities the volume and species of sawlog Repap needs i isn’t available in for locals were concerned, | the region. DRESS a | Welding will account for more than half the work and “It’s fairly competitive (the market), 50 we've stretched outa | CATEGORY: am | most of that would involve stainless alloy steel. That little bit further,” he said of the Alaska purchase. “If we log local- I ° | required a sophisticated type of welding which would have ly, for every stick of sawlog we get, we geta stick of pulp log.” ! 4 meant bringing in welders from outside anyway. ’.. Sawmills must.cut to the profile of the forest.and not high- . j Kitimat was chosen for its deep water harbour and suit- prade sawlogs. That's left companies with a glut of pulp logs, 1 Fax entries to board office at 638-1837 or drop off I ability as a home for Pac Rim’s employees. pushing prices down and leaving sawmills swamped with wood | FT _ at any sponsor listed. I Prince Rupert was also in the running for the plant’s they-can’t.use, Ogawa. explained. I~ I location but that would have meant an additional $100 mil- Private contractors in Hazelton are upset because the Carnaby i 1 lion in pipeline costs, said Stanley. That more than out- mill will stop buying local wood this week until the new year, but. | 4 weighed Kitimat being 24 hours more in sailing time from continue processing the Alaska wood, I Korea than Prince Rupert, he added, es 2 2 I Pac-Rim was also uncertain aboul getting environmental Repap provided incorrect dates last week for the holiday shut- approvals for a pipeline to Prince Rupert compared to.the down of its Terrace mill. The correct dates for the closure are Kitimat route which will run through “already disturbed” Dec. 20 to Jan. 1: Mill operations will restart Jan. 2. areas, said Stanley. - ; While the Kitimat route is still subject to an environmen- tal assessment, Stanley said his company is encouraged. While there had been minimal opposition to the project so far, it remained to be seen whether that changed as the project progressed, Stanley emphasized the project is designed to cause minimum impact and he described it as both “‘sellable (and) defensible”. Love Your Children? Keep them safe! Preserve valley, new study says HAISLA natives and environmentalists are now calling for the preservation of the Kowesas River watershed south of Kitimat. _ , The 40,000-hectare valley is adjacent to the Kitlope River ; watershed, ‘which West Fraser Timber voluntarily gave up the . rights io log i in 1994, ’ A $100,000 study released by Ecotrust and Haisla natives last week concludes thin soils and steep slopes mean the valley shouldn't be logged. West Fraser plans to begin logging there starting in 2001. Wood from.the valley would feed Skeena Sawmills and the Eurocan pulp and paper mill. The study says logging would threaten the river with large seale erosion and sedimentation, threatening oolichan and sal- mon stocks. Researchers also found 15 animal species on the province’ 8 blue or red list of endangered or threatened species, and a number of trees which show human use by the Haisla as far back as 395 years. West Fraser vice-president Wayne Cloge noted the provincial government’s Protected Areas Strategy doesn’t consider the Kowesas a candidate for protection. “The Kitlope was spared logging to protect those values and the ecosecticn represented by the region now far exceeds the provincial goal of preserving 12 per cent of the land base." Clogg said. : Forest Alliance of B.C. chairman Jack Munro ripped into those calling for the valley’s preservation. “Ecotrust Canada claims to be concerned with economic development.” he said. “Yet here they are calling for a reduced timber supply in the northwest just when major operators there have made it clear how tough it is already tu maintain current jobs.” “] think what we're seeing is the next step in the campaign to shut down logging along the north and central coast that a number of preservationist groups promised earlier last year,” he said. ’ Refuse fo supply Alcohol to your own feenagers or _ their friends}. 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