THURSDAY, june 23 2016 Vol. 73, No. 72
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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BODYBUILDING COMPETITION A FAMILY AFFAIR
healing from dam a work in progress for Kwadacha
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Crews clean up and rebuild near Stone Creek, southwest of Chetwynd in the Pine Pass.
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Government officials are hopeful Highway 97 south from the Pine Pass to Chetwynd will be opened to single lane alternating traffic by the end of this week after torrential rainfall washed out parts of the highway. More than 178 pieces of equipment are actively repairing the damage, with more on the way, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Todd Stone said on Monday. “Construction crews and heavy equipment are working day and night to rebuild sections of highways and roads that were severely damaged by massive flooding in northern BC,” he said. Ministry officials couldn’t immediately say what day the road will open to traffic. As of Monday, June 20, five of the six highways closed by the flooding are now open. Highway 29 south opened Saturday
evening (June 18) to single lane alternating traffic. “We have managed to provide access for ministry crews and contractors south of Hasler so we can bring supplies to local residents affected by the flooding,” Stone said. Highway 2 in Dawson Creek is now open to two lanes, with traffic control and crews “working hard” to restore the highway to four lanes by next week. Of the 38 side roads affected, 20 are now open to at least single lane alternating traffic. “The total number of repair sites is just over 130, all primarily in the South Peace area,” he said. Fifty-eight of those are on numbered roads, and 73 are various side roads. The Ministry of Transportation will be providing regular updates on drivebc.ca and on its social media platforms. Visit alaskahighwaynews.ca for more updates as they happen.
Northern Health has moved its palliative care rooms out of Peace Villa and into the Fort St. John Hospital, prompting concern from the group that trains volunteers to support patients in their dying days. Northern Health had been operating two palliative rooms in Peace Villa since the facility and new hospital opened in 2012, but Chief Operating Officer Angela de Smit said the rooms weren’t being used enough. “Over the last four years what we have found is patients have informed us, and family members, that they would prefer to stay in the hospital,” matt preprost photo she said. Randy Merk, chair of the “We did lots of Fort St. John & District advertisement and Palliative Care Society. communications directly with patients and families that would use those rooms. For some reason, they felt more comfortable having their loved one palliate in the hospital.” The two rooms have already been repurposed to meet demand for senior and respite care at Peace Villa, de Smit said. She added families will still receive palliative services in acute care beds in the hospital, where doctors and nurses make more frequent, daily rounds. The decision was an 18-month process also made in consultation with doctors and nurses, de Smit said. However, Randy Merk, who chairs the Fort St. John and District Palliative Care Society, said the move was sudden news for his organization, which Merk says was not consulted. “If we lose it we’re not going to have it again. We’re not going to get it back,” he said. “They were built specially when the hospital was built. We were so excited about it and now they are going to take away.” The former palliative rooms in Peace Villa were essentially double-room suites with space for families, and society volunteers, to make meals and rest as a patient received end-of-life See PALLIATIVE on A13 care.
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Residents protest Site C land dealings
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zoë ducklow Opponents of the Site C dam gathered at 100 and 100 in Fort St. John on Saturday, June 18, to protest BC Hydro plans to have some Peace Valley landowners out of their homes by the end of the year. Landowners in the Bear Flat and Cache Creek areas have been given until the end of the year to sell their land to BC Hydro or face expropriation, making way for the realignment of Highway 29. Bear Flat, where third-generation farmers Ken and Arlene Boon live, is the first of four portions of the highway that will need to be rebuilt outside of the dam’s flood zone. “As a landowner and a ratepayer, you don’t have any rights if
they decide they want your land for anything,” Arlene Boon said at the protest. “We could sit on our property and say ‘you can’t come,’ but we’d just get hauled away.” The Boons say they received notice that they have until the end of the year to sell and move out. Their family has owned the land in question since the 1940s, after it was purchased from the original homesteaders. “We’re not focused on where we’re going to go. We’re focused on stopping this project,” Boon said. She wonders if BC Hydro wants her and her husband out of the valley sooner than necessary because they’ve been outspoken critics of the dam. See LAND on A12
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Mickey Zunti is a farmer in Fort St. John, who’s lived in the region all his life. He lives well north of Site C, but is particularly concerned about the loss of agricultural land. “Like the recent flooding showed us, sometimes we get cut off from other centres. We need to be able to grow our own food. Christy Clark is trying to build a legacy at the expense of wildlife and food security, and the landowners here,” he said.
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