Gateway to the North

june 2018

Legally Blonde: The Musical coming to Prince George Citizen staff

O Citizen file photo

Shelby Meaney, who played Maria in Judy Russell’s production of The Sound of Music, stars as Elle Woods in Russell’s upcoming show Legally Blonde: The Musical.

migod, you guys.

Guess what musical is showing its briefs this summer in Prince George?

The international hit show Legally Blonde: The Musical is the summer blockbuster presentation by director/ choreographer Judy Russell at the P.G. Playhouse.

Russell announced this week that the show’s all-local cast would be led by Shelby Meaney as protagonist Elle Woods, Franco Celli as Warner, Padraig Hogan as Emmett and Murray Gable as Professor Callahan.

“This Tony-nominated production is ridiculously fun from start to finish and entertaining for all ages,” Russell said.

It features memorable and catchy tunes including: Omigod

You Guys, What You Want, Chip On My Shoulder, and So Much Better, among others.

Legally Blonde features music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin and book by Heather Hach.

It is based originally on the novel Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown and the 2001 film of the same name.

“The play tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who enrolls at Harvard Law School to win back her ex-boyfriend Warner,” Russell said.

“She discovers how her knowledge of the law can help others, and manages to surprise everyone when she defies expectations while staying true to herself.”

Legally Blonde: The Musical will run at the Prince George Playhouse from July 17 to July 28.

Tickets are now available online at centralinteriortickets.com.

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Wednesday, June 20, 2018

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Human feces falls from sky in B.C. cities Behdad MAHICHI The Province

S Handout photo via The Province

Susan Allan and her son were driving through Kelowna with the sunroof down on May 9 when they were inundated with human feces coming from the sky.

usan Allan and her son were driving through Kelowna’s downtown core after coming back from Peachland on a mild afternoon with her sunroof down –but stopping at a red light would change the course of her day, and weeks

to come.

“This is where we were inundated with poop,” she said. “It was coming from the sky, covered my car, and got in my face and in my mouth.”

The brownish discharge splattered across the entire hood and back seats of Allan’s car, as well as the cars behind her, and in adjacent lanes.

And the smell was horrid.

“You could tell it was feces because it smelt like poop. But there was also a hint of

chlorine. It was the strangest smell.”

When Allan managed to look up, she saw a large plane flying overhead. Once the light turned green, the pair rushed to a nearby gas station to wash the particles off themselves and their car.

A visit to the doctor the following morning for a swollen, red eye revealed that Allan had also contracted a conjunctivitis infection.

“He told me I had human feces in my eye,” she said. “I’m 100 per cent positive it was from an airplane.”

Allan continues to use eye drops to treat her lasting sting from the May 9 incident.

Three other residents across B.C. have recounted similar experiences since she went public with her story.

All four accounts happened in the span of four days, between May 9-12.

— see ALL OF A SUDDEN, page 4

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‘All of a sudden, it’s just brown’ — from page 3 Transport Canada has now launched an investigation into two separate incidents in Kelowna. In an email, the department said it takes all reports of possible debris from aircraft very seriously and that it’s possible a valve malfunction allowed the leakage of “blue ice” –a term used for frozen waste enclosed in sewage holding tanks aboard aircraft.

If the liquid seeps and sticks to the outside of the aircraft, it could detach from the plane during the flight, either in a solid or melted state, the department said.

Aviation regulations state that “no person shall create a hazard to persons or property on the surface by dropping an object from an aircraft in flight.”

Any operator found to be in contravention of the regulations will

be subject to enforcement under the agency’s mandate.

But Clark Duimel, executive director of the Pacific Flying Club, said that he hasn’t heard of this happening in nearly 30 years.

“I doubt its coming from a jet aircraft, though it’s possible,” he said. “Even if there was any leakage of any sort, it would be a major incident at the airport ramp.”

Yet other residents whose cars were showered by pungent waste say it’s difficult to imagine it coming from anything but an airplane.

On that same afternoon of May 9, Ron Ackerson pulled into a rest stop along the highway while going home to Williams Lake after a doctor’s appointment.

“All of a sudden, it’s just brown.

The whole grill, the hood, the windshield, and even some on the tail gate. I thought ‘what the frig’

(There’s) no way in this world there’s a bird big enough in this day and age that could crap that much.

— Ron Ackerson is going on here?’”

Ackerson said it was a clear sky, and he didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of anything above.

“But there’s no way in this world there’s a bird big enough in this day and age that could crap that much. And they sure all wouldn’t be crapping at the same time,” he said.

Ecologist and ornithologists seem to agree.

David Lank, a research associate with Simon Fraser University’s biology department and centre for wildlife ecology pointed to two features of the discharge.

“First of all, it would mostly be white if it was a bird,” he said.

“And the amount – it’s too much even for a flock of geese all pooping simultaneously.”

In another incident in Kelowna, Brett Yates found brown splatters on his car parked outside his home. He also found the same liquid dispersed diagonally across three other vehicles in the neighbourhood.

“It smelt pretty disgusting,” Yates said. “I had no explanation for it. It puzzled me for a day and then I put it out of my mind until I started seeing stories about other incidents.”

A mass amount of fecal matter

affecting multiple people was also the case for Karen Copeland, who was sitting inside her vehicle with her daughter in Abbotsford.

“It’s like when you drive under a tree and there’s water on it –that’s what it sounded like,” Copeland said. “I looked around and there were four cars that were hit as well.”

It’s unclear if the Kelowna residents were directly below a flight path when the incidents occurred.

But their locations are relatively close to one another, and quite close to the airport, said a spokesperson for Nav Canada, a nonprofit, private corporation that owns and operates the country’s civil air navigation service.

Kelowna International Airport said it is co-operating with Transport Canada on the investigation, which is ongoing.

gatewaynews

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Citizen file photo

A train loaded with containers is seen at CN Rail’s Prince George railyard.

CN unveils rail upgrades Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

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he details are clickety-clacking together for CN’s massive investment scheduled for northern B.C. this summer.

CN Rail disclosed in April that big changes were coming to improve the flow of train traffic.

The company’s national vice-president Sean Finn said that the upgrades were in response to unexpected and sustained cargo demands across Canada. The line between Prince George and Prince Rupert needs more capacity, he said.

This week, additional CN Rail information brought forth more details about the construction projects. The investment in B.C. alone is set to be about $340-million, and a lot of that in the northern region.

“We are investing for the long haul with these projects to boost capacity and network resiliency to meet growing traffic on our corridors to and from the West Coast and across B.C.,” said Doug Ryhorchuk, vice-president of CN’s Western Region.

“Our investments in infrastructure, equipment and people will help us deliver superior service to our customers across the province and North America,” he said.

— see ‘STRONG TRANSPORTATION, page 6

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‘Strong transportation networks are so important’ —from page 5 “Additionally, our substantial investments to renew our existing railway infrastructure underscore our commitment to operating safely,” Ryhorchuk added.

An urgency to upgrade the CN Rail system emerged this winter when massive amounts of cargo – a lot of it perishable organic material like grain, lumber, wood pellets, pulp chips, etc. – got stuck in shipment bottlenecks.

The national economy felt the effects of those commodities stuck in transportation limbo.

The federal Minister of Public Services & Procurement (the Member of Parliament for shipping hub and agriculture-rich Delta) Carla Qualtrough welcomed the attention to cleaning up the backlog by investing in the physical system of rail transportation.

“These major capital investments are a sign of CN’s commitment to its operations in B.C., which continues to lead Canada in economic growth,” she said. “CN’s infrastructure investments this year throughout B.C. will help strengthen local economies,

CP file photo

A CN Rail locomotive is seen on Feb. 23, 2015 in Montreal. support good middle class jobs and further solidify B.C.’s economic advantage as Canada’s Pacific gateway.”

Part of CN’s plans this summer include constructing new rail lines.

Those include: • Construction of four new sidings (passing lanes for trains) between Prince Rupert and Jasper; • Extension of three existing sidings between Prince Rupert and Jasper; • A siding extension north of Kamloops on CN’s Vancouver to Edmonton corridor.

The spending will also be applied to renovations on existing structures. In some cases that includes major changes to the infrastructure.

The list includes: • Replacement of approximately 185 kilometres of rail.

• Installation of more than 335,000 new railroad ties.

• Rebuilds of approximately 50 road crossing surfaces.

• Continuation of the multi-year maintenance project on the Fraser River Bridge.

• Miscellaneous work on culverts, signal systems and additional track infrastructure.

Val Litwin, president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce took notice of the upgrade program on behalf of the province’s business community.

“We are pleased to see CN making capital investments in B.C. that will expand our rail network, improve rail service to our businesses providing and supporting thousands of jobs across our provincial economy,” Litwin said.

“Strong transportation networks are so important to our trade- and resource-based economy in B.C.” In addition to the infrastructure investments, CN Rail has also committed to boosting its rolling stock and staff.

It was recently announced that CN was in the process of buying 350 new box cars to serve forest products and metals customers; 350 new lumber cars to meet growing demand to move wood products; 1,000 Canadian-built, new generation high-cube grain hopper cars over the next two years to rejuvenate the aging equipment needed to serve increasing annual crop yields; 60 new GE locomotives right away and about 120 more to be in service by the end of 2020.

On the human resources side of the operation, “approximately 1,250 new, qualified conductors will be in the field network-wide before next winter,” said a CN spokesperson.

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New reclamation bonds threaten livelihood of small miners Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

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Mackenzie-based developer of small-scale mines fears a new method for calculating the cost of reclaiming a site will drive him and other “mom and pop” operations out of business.

For years, developers put up a bond amounting to $5,000 per hectare but beginning in 2017, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources began to implement a process purported to provide a more accurate assessment of returning a site to its original condition.

The so-called reclamation bond calculator sets out the per-unit rate for the various types of work – be it removing debris, deactivating a road or planting trees – while a ministry inspector determines how much effort is needed.

Long leery of the new approach, it all became too much for Mitch Mortensen when recently told one of his clients would have to put up a bond worth $216,997 before he could work a one-hectare portion of a claim in the Manson Creek area north of Fort St. James.

Bonds that size will simply kill the industry, according to Mortensen, who runs Snowshoe Mountain Resources Corp., a private junior exploration and development company.

“If this is allowed to stand, I’m wiped out,” he said.

Rick Wittner, president of the Quesnelbased Cariboo Mining Association, said the new approach was developed in response to the Mount Polley disaster.

“They took a look at the bonds that they had at Mount Polley and they’d seen that they were 20 or 30 years old and there wasn’t enough money there to cover it, just in case Imperial Metals decided to walk away from it,” Wittner said.

“There was an Auditor General’s report done and they felt that the bonding right across the board wasn’t sufficient and it didn’t matter if it was placer, sand and gravel, mineral exploration or the big open pit mines, so they’ve come up with this bond calculator.”

However, a Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources spokesperson said Mount Polley was not the reason.

Rather, it was developed simply as a way to provide a “fair and consistent means of assessing reclamation liability” and to ensure the provincial government “collects adequate security to cover the best estimate of reclamation costs.”

Wittner said the outcomes tend to be “a little on the heavy side,” particularly for placer miners who’ve been working their claims for decades while maintaining clean records over that time.

While he called the amount Mortenson’s client is facing “quite horrendous,” Wittner also suggested a project’s remote location is a big reason.

— see ‘THEY WON’T, page 11

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‘They won’t accept our equipment’ — from page 10 “When they do the bond calculation, they actually factor in what it would cost to travel all the way into the location and haul out the equipment that they’ve got there, the trailers that they’ve got there, in case they went broke and then of course to go back in and fill in the mining that they’ve done,” Wittner said.

He said it also depends on how deep a miner will have to dig to hit pay dirt.

While most of the claims in the Central Interior are worked by small “mom and pop” ventures, the big placer mines are found up in Atlin.

Miners must go down anywhere from 75 to 125 feet but the yields can be phenomenal.

“I heard, two years ago, one of them did something like $37 million in recovery,” Wittner said.

He said claim holders who can’t come up

with the cash can try to get irrevocable letters of credit from their banks or turn to an insurance company or a bonding company but need to provide collateral.

“They won’t accept our equipment, you usually have to put your home on the line,” Wittner said.

One of the big sticking points for Mortensen is the cost of digging nine test pits, each 30 metres wide by 30 metres long by 10 metres deep. The calculator put the cost at $76,950 to reclaim those portions but Mortensen asserted it could be done for about $20,000.

A proponent can work with the ministry to reduce the amount.

Options, according the ministry spokesperson, can include reducing the size of the mine, providing a phased plan, committing to a detailed progressive reclamation plan and providing additional and more detailed information in regards to the mine plan.

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Valemount mayor welcomes TMX pipeline purchase Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

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ews that the federal government has taken over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project has left Valemount mayor Jeanette Townsend in a buoyant mood.

“This is going to make a big difference to Valemount,” she said in an interview.

It amounts to a reversal of fortune. In April, Kinder Morgan said it would cease all non-essential spending on the project citing obstruction by B.C. that put the viability of the pipeline in question and set a May 31 deadline for getting assurances it can proceed without delays.

Then, last week, the federal government stepped in and purchased the pipeline for $4.5 billion and vowed to carry through on

Townsend said she understood as many as 1,000 workers would converge on the town and create a significant economic spinoff for local businesses for a year or so. the effort to triple the pipeline’s capacity.

From the Alberta border, it follows Highway 16 to Valemount and then turns south and follows Highway 5. According to Kinder Morgan’s website, an area just south of the community of about 950 people 285 kilometres west of Prince George would be used as a staging area for materials and equipment.

— see PROTESTERS, page 13

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Protesters raise concerns over pipeline — from page 12 Townsend said she understood as many as 1,000 workers would converge on the town and create a significant postive economic spinoff for local businesses for a year or so.

She said a work camp of about 400 pipeliners was set up near Valemount when looping work was carried out in 2008 “and they never ever caused any kind of conflict anyplace.”

The Simpcw First Nation also appears to be onside.

A year ago, they signed a mutual benefits agreement with Kinder Morgan.

But not everyone is happy.

Earlier this month about 30 protesters bearing placards and signs targeted the Prince George office of MPs Todd Doherty and Bob Zimmer during a national day of action against the project, which organizers

claim will cost taxpayers up to $15 billion.

“Let that sink in. Dozens of First Nations still don’t have clean drinking water. We’re facing a housing crisis. Renewable energy projects are desperate for more funding,” they said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“But Trudeau thinks there’s enough extra cash lying around to spend up to $15 billion on a pipeline so risky even Kinder Morgan doesn’t think it’s a good investment? The sale won’t be finalized for at least a month, and if there’s a massive backlash from voters, Trudeau could still cancel the buyout.

Will you join this emergency action to tell the Trudeau government to stop the Kinder Morgan buyout?”

The local event was facilitated by the Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance conjunction while Lead Now put on the national day of action.

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Plan for beef packing plant in P.G. gets boost Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

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he provincial government has committed up to $450,000 towards development of a beef packing plant to Prince George.

B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham announced the funding Friday during the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association annual general meeting in Smithers. The goal is to have the plant up and running by 2020.

“This project has the potential to ensure B.C. cattle are bred, raised and finished in our province, providing retailers, suppliers, restaurants and consumers with great quality B.C. beef,” Popham said. “This can provide an economic boost to rural B.C. and give consumers what they want.”

If the plant becomes fully operational, it would generate about 80 full-time jobs and 620 spin-off jobs.

The funding will be used to develop an industry-led co-operative business model, to support B.C.

This can provide an economic boost to rural B.C. and give consumers what they want.

— Minister Lana Popham ranchers, and determine what role they could have in the plant’s ownership and operation.

“We recognize that there will be other considerations before we

start building this facility,” B.C. Cattlemen’s Association general manager Kevin Boon said. “We need to look at establishing a finishing process, and increasing feeding capacity. There is a lot of work ahead of us, but this is an exciting first step in realizing that vision.”

Prince George Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris welcomed the news saying he is glad the NDP government has carried on with a project initiated when the B.C. Liberals were in power.

“Right from the minute I got

elected in 2013, I started working with the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association on this,” said Morris.

He said the BCCA was provided funding to put together a business case.

“I know that things had been looking promising but it seemed to die off just after the last election. So I think it’s good, I think we have the ability here in British Columbia, and by building the plant here in Prince George, to be a significant force in the beef production industry.”

— see ‘WE’RE LOOKING, page 15

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‘We’re looking at a couple hundred head a day which is still significant’ — from page 14 When he was in government, Morris said they were looking at a plant capable of processing 50,000 to 200,000 head a year.

“Initially, we’re looking at a couple hundred head a day which is still significant,” he said. “It doesn’t compete with the Cargill plant they have in High River (Alberta) and the one in Brooks (Alberta) where they do thousands a day but it would still be sufficient enough to meet the cattle producers’ demands here in British Columbia.”

Morris sits on the legislature’s select standing committee on agriculture, fish and food which has been holding public consultations on local meat production and inspection in B.C. Public hearings for northern B.C., including one for Prince George that had been scheduled for Tuesday, have been canceled due to a lack of interest. Province-wide, less than a dozen people had registered to speak at the hearings, Morris said, and many of them will be flown to Victoria to speak to the committee because it will be less expensive than flying the committee around B.C. Morris said he has been looking forward to hearing input on a call to eliminate a regulation that requires small farmers living within two hours of an abbatoir to take their animals to the facility to be slaughtered.

He said the regulation “does seem to be a little bit bureaucratic.”

If there are legitimate health and safety reasons behind the measure, Morris said

Morris he’s in support, but if it’s meant primarily to secure markets for slaughterhouses, not so much.

“If it’s more on the competition side, then let the competition sort out where the abbatoirs are and how many we have and so forth,” he said.

Lifting the restriction would promote farm-gate sales, enhance food security and encourage consumers to buy local, advocates say. Fraser-Fort George Regional District directors passed a motion of support for lifting the restriction during their May meeting. McBride municipal director Loranne Martin called the regulation a “severe hardship for many of our local farmers.”

In 2016, B.C. beef producers brought nearly 174,000 cattle and calves to market.

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