Gazette NORTH ISLAND
Publications Mail Agreement No. 391275
50th Year No. 8
February 19, 2015
www.northislandgazette.com
Newsstand $1.29 + GST
• arrests...
Men arrested by RCMP in separate incidents. Page 6
• Unveiled...
An interpretive sign was unveiled at the Quatse Estuary. Page 10 Jennifer Brum photo
Wounded Warriors send-off
• victorioUs...
The North Island Eagles Peewee club advances. Page 11 opiNioN Page 4 lEttErS Page 5 SportS Page 11-12 claSSifiEdS Page 13-15
Participants in the 2nd Annual Wounded Warriors run were up bright and early at Carrot Park in Port Hardy Sunday morning to begin their 600-kilometre journey to Victoria. The runners were sent on their way with a $1,940 donation from various groups, organizations and individuals.
port alice will survive: allen By Kathy O’Reilly-Taylor Editor Port Alice — The Neucel Specialty Cellulose pulp mill in Port Alice is ceasing production for six months this week putting about 400 people out of work, but the village will soldier on. “All shutdowns are hard on the people that live here. It’s hard on everybody in Port Alice,” said Mayor Jan Allen. “Have we been through this before? Yes we have. “It doesn’t make it any easier, but we have seen it before.
It’s not anything that we can’t get past. We will survive,” Allen said. “We have 340 members that work at the mill,” said Unifor Local 514 President Don Vye, and there are about 400 employees at the plant in total. Neucel employees had just gone back to work last month. “There was a curtailment in November and December of last year,” said Vye. “Jan. 5 we went back and did some preliminary maintenance. The mill started up approximate-
ly the 17th of January,” he said. The closure will have an impact not only on Neucel employees, but on business people who rely on their patronage, not only in the Village of Port Alice, but the Tri Port area and the North Island as a whole. “It changes the situation in a small community such as this, because if the people are not getting regular pay cheques” their spending is curtailed, said Vye. “It certainly causes a lot of concern with people in Port Alice, Port Hardy all over the
North Island and even down island where some of the employees are from,” he said. There will be some people still at work at the plant. “There are some necessary people while the mill is shut down,” Vye said, for safety, to monitor the plant for environmental purposes, and to keep a watchful eye on equipment.
See page 3 ‘Closure”
Local works BC 5 2 . b e F , y a 7x2eprocess d s dne W
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