The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - A5

licence with Encorp while a court case involving the Terrace Bottle Depot continues.

HE TERRACE Bottle

Depot is recycling its argument against Encorp . for the fourth time in.a

bid to overturn the termination of

its licence to:collect used beverage containers. - Murray Smith, lawyer for. depot

~ owner Shirley Lavoie, says he is in

the process of filing an application’ for appeal to’ the Supreme Court of Canada, despite three previous rul- ings against the depot in B.C.

The Terrace Recycling Depot, which operates in Thornhill, ‘has *

been fighting the termination of its licence with Encorp, a B.C. non-

profit used beverage licensing body,

‘for more than a year.

ny

The Terrace Bottle Depot, co- owned by Shirley Lavoie and John Taylor, was granted the depot li-

- cence by Encorp in 2001.

The licence agreement allowed the depot to collect used beverage containers for the Terrace area. En- corp reimbursed the depot for de- posits paid to customers as well as handling fees.

According to a ruling late last

year about the dispute, Encorp be-—

Credit plan to stay on

the shelf

A PROPOSAL to pay recyclers a credit to help reduce the amount of waste flowing to landfills will remain on the backburner, city councillor

Stew Christensen predicts,

The idea to encourage recycling here was advanced a year ago by the Kitimat-Stikine regional district.

Terrace city council rejected it then — on the basis it cannot afford the $25,000 per year cost because of the ongoing New Skeena crisis — but pledged to reconsider the idea in its 2005 budget deliberations.

“1 know how long it’s going to take °

to consider it,” Christensen said, add-

-ing a year later the city is in an even _ more challenging financial position.

“We can't be adding anything right now,” he said.

Under the proposal, recognized non-profits or recycling businesses could apply for a credit of $12.75 per tonne‘of recyclables collected. It would cover organic material, paper products, glass and plastic containers.

Providing the credit to recyclers would actually | save the city money,

advocates say, because it will gener-

ate offsetting savings through reduced costs of hauling waste to dumps and operating landfills.

But the concept is framed around the idea that area residents will one day be using a proposed new landfill at Forceman Ridge, south of Lakelse Lake.

It’s supposed to replace the much closer Terrace and Thornhill landfills.

But the regional district has run into delays in developing the new re- gional dump.

»

SHAY PINDER and Jimi Chobotar return containers at the > Terrace Return It recycling centre. The depot on Kenney St. has a temporary.

LESLIE DICKSON PHOTO. ,

‘Alocal depot i is taking its battle with Encorp all the way _ to the nation’ S highest c court

c.

eo

a me G

ago! Sica Sineay thie depot”

was claiming reimbursement for?’

deposits that it had not paid to cus- tomers.

In accordance with the ‘licence contract signed by Encorp and the Terrace Bottle Depot in 2001, Encorp’s allegation was heard by a two-member standing commit- tee. One member was an Encorp employee, the other the president of the B.C. Bottle Depot Associa- tion, of which the Terrace depot is a member.

The committee ruled in Encorp’s favour a year ago, ahd the depot’ S licence was terminated.

Fennel Court, disputing the im- partiality of the committee and the termination of the licence.

The court ruled the depot’s fi- cence was terminated fairly last March,

Smith then appealed the Su- preme Court's decision to the B.C. Court of Appeal. The decision, made in Vancouver Nov. 19, up- held the earlier decision by the Su- preme Court.

Lavoie’s lawyer, Murray Smith, said he is disputing Encorp’s al- legation of fraud as well as-the depot’s failure to be heard fairly by the committee in his application to

NATASHA CANDELORA, manager at the Terrace Return It Centre, says virtually any beverage container except milk cartons can be re-

turned for recycling.

_ LESLIE DICKSON PHOTO

Three different native, bands — the Haisla, Kitselas, and Lax Kwa’alaams — have expressed concerns about the proposed landfill’s location.

“I’m sure it’s going to go ahead,” Christensen said. “It’s just.taking a little longer than I had anticipated.”

The recycling credit idea will be- -

come much more attractive. he said, when local dumps are closed and residents must pay higher transporta- tion costs to haul waste to Forceman Ridge.

— Jeff Nagel

the federal Supreme Court. |

“An employee of Encorp, the party making. the unsupportable. claim of fraud, was. made a mem- ber of the dispute resolution panel to decide the allegation. Encorp ap- ‘pointed itself to decide its own al- legation of fraud,” Smith said.

However, in ‘November's Courts of Appeal ruling, Madam Justice Levine disagreed: — :

“In ‘my opinion, these parties agreed to a dispute resolution pro- cedure. that. did not require that the

-persons determining the dispute, at the first. instance, be impartial and

independent,” said Levine.

Neither Encorp nor its lawyer for the dispute, Tracey, Cohen, was | aware of Smith’s appeal application — to the Supreme Court of Canada re-

garding the dispute and would not

comment on it.

The Terrace Return It Centre has had a temporary licence with Encorp to serve the Terrace area since November 2003, said owner Ida Verzyl.

Verzyl said the contract signed by the Terrace Bottke Depot and : Encorp is standard with all depot licencing agreements.

Our local recycling options.

ALTHOUGH Terrace doesn’t have a pick-up service for recycling, °- residents can drop off a variety of products at recycling facilities

around town,

. The Terrace Return It Centre, located at '2901 Kenney. St. takes " most beverage containers.

“If you can drink it, we take it” said manager Natasha Candclora, | but noted they don’ t accept milk containers.

If your bottle haul is big after the holidays, Candelora said they . will pick up empties amounting to $30 or more.

Candelora added they are’ “bot- ti drive experts” and will provide space for groups in the.centré, and employees will show groups how - to sort containers.

Liquor bottles can be taken ‘to the Return It Centre, the govern- ment liquor store and the Skeena Liquor Store. The beer and wine store in the Coast Inn of the West

-accepts cooler and beer bottles, and beer cans. ,

Save On Foods takes pop cans, juice boxes, milk jugs and inkjet cartridges, as well as the packaging of private brands sold in the store.

Juice boxes and pop bottles and, cans can also be retumed to Safe- — way.

The Terrace Bottle Depot. on Kofoed Dr. in Thornhill, accepts newspaper, office paper, corrugat- ed carboard, paint, pesticides, and milk jugs. said part owner Shirley Lavoie.

How it all came to pass over the years

By LES WATMOUGH

CARL POHLE moved to Terrace in the late thirties, the “ great depression, and built a sawmill, and a house at Five Mile just north of Spring Creek. It was small, but it grew and grew until it became one of the major three in town.

Carl was doing all the things other logging firms were doing — cutling poles, selling boom logs, exporting to On- tario. Pohle, of course cut lumber, and:Carl had a dry shed where he stored all the clears, spruce and cedar, until there

ay

vas cnough fora railcar load. =

All of the lumber shipped from here in those days wa loaded into railcars. Loading hemlock 3x 12s into a rail car when the outside temperature was 85F was a job that ev- ery one cast lots for, and even fought over. Hans Muchie began his career with Pohle loading lumber into box cars.

Access to the rail lines was what prompted Carl to move the mill because the extra haul from Five Mile was very expensive. The old mill needed to be rebuilt any way so it made sense to rebuild on a new site by the rail tracks.

By the fall of 1955 the new mill was in operation, a fine mill, all steam power. Remember, in 1955 BC Hydro elec- tricity was generated j in town by diesel plants with limited - capacity.

At this time there were three major mills - Pohle,

Sande, and HK. All provided good and steady employ- ment. In 1966 the Sande operation was refused additional. logging rights by the forest ministry, was shut down and’

demolished. The LHK mill burned in 1957 and was never rebuilt,

‘In 1959 Price Skeena and partners built a ‘mill which is now West Fraser.and they received timber permits to_ begin operation. '

In the hot summer of 1960 the Pohle ‘mill caught fire and burned up or down, whatever sawmills do. | .

By this time Hans -Muehle had become mill manager, and he helped Carl ‘rebuild the mill on the same site; but this mill was powered with electric motors as the grid from Kemano had been extended to Terrace.

“In 1965 the government got antsy about all the saw lots from TFL | being ground up to feed the pulp mill in Prince Rupert, changed the rules and forced that company _ to properly utilize the saw logs.”

- Columbia Cellulose decided ‘that the best way to do

_this was to buy the Pohle mill, and divert the saw logs.

into that mill and ship the resulting, residual chips to the pulp mill. Management in the Pohle division remained the

same, but Carl took a decreasing role j in that, siving most ©

of the, work to Hans. ‘In 1973, with the threat.of the northern operation. of

-. Columbia Cellulose closing, the government: took over’ all the assets. Suddenly, a operation. that had not shown a

profit in 20 years began to show Profits, very good prof- ils. 9 SF ag _ When a new government took over in 1975, BCRIC was formed and a carousel of deals came to be. | Alt the end of this era, 1988, Repap, owned by George Petty, got the northern operation from government. West Fraser acquired Price Skeena, a name form another time, to augment their pulp operation in Kitimat. The Pohle mill

_Was renamed Repap, which is *paper’ spelied backward.

After a year of operation Repap built a-new, and fully

-modern mill on the Pohle site, then tore the old one down.

Reports are that this new mill repaid its $40 million cost in 18 months, -

In 1996 Repap became seriously over-extended with — its eastern creditors and declared bankruptcy in 1977.

The Pohle mill came from the 1930s, evolved over 61.

years and now became bankrupt, and this looked like the end. But it was not, and we now enter modern history. ’ There was a strike in 1995 at the Prince Rupert pulp mill that cost the company $235 million over, of ail things, job security,

After the 1997 receivership takeover the Royal Bank’

withdraws and the provincial government picks up its

share and. invests money to keep the complex going and. the people employed as it did in 1974. ~~ + In August 200! negotiation for a sale begin with Mer-

cer International and after seven months: of negotiation .

and in an atmosphere of success, the Mercer off cr was ter- minated by the government. .

- Seven days later, the government announced a deal had » been signed with NWBC Pulp, a company with George

Petty and Dan Veniez as principals. The name Skeena Cel- .

lulose was changed to New Skcena Forest Products.

The Liberal government announces that the Mercer deal is'off because of Mercer demands for changes to the Forest Act, changes which were never specified. Cabinet

minister Rick Thorpe also said Mercer wanted subsidics,

bul these were never specified.

Last November Mercer completed an agreement to purchase Castlegar pulp, a twin in all aspects to the Prince Rupert Pulp, for $210 million.

The deal with NWBC Pulp is for all the mills, Smith- ers, Kitwanga, Carnaby, Terrace, the whole log chipper in

Hazelton and Prince Rupert pulp. And all the inventory, fee simple lots, and timber licenses. And $230 million of - deferred tax credits. Costed oul, this comes to 35 430, 000 without tax credits.

New Skcena has sold off $16, 450 million of assets, “and had listed for sale all the deeded properties for $2.004 mil- lion and has sold a portion of these, some with valuable timber. New Skeena has also sold $12 million of timber

“on the stump”, all of which should have gone to the Pohle mill, but went mostly to export.

The Kitwanga plant was sold even though it was the only plant operating and generating revenue. —

All of this impacted on the Pohle operation and led to its demise. Kitwanga ran, and. made money. It was 20

. years older than Pohle mill. The Pohle operation over the last.10 quarters that it ran

lost money in only two quarters, but was closed the day after it changed hands on the 30 of April 2002. After trying to attract new investors for 2 years, New

. Skeena goes into bankruptcy protection in the fall of 2004.

It was inevitable that this mill would be closed. It had.not - produced any lumber for sale in three years, and any com- pany with nothing to sell will go broke. .

After 61 years in business, in good times and bad, it

took one man, one company and one government — the

Liberals — three years to destroy the mill that built Ter- race. ; When it closed, Pohle paid $12 million a year in wages, :

_$12.million a year for services supplied, and $50 million a

year for log purchases and $650,000 in taxes to the city, a total of $74. 650 million a year.

That is a lot of money for a little town like Terrace to lose. And no one seems to care.

Les Watmough is the Kitimat-Stikine regional district director for Thornhill and area.