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Vol. 89 Issue 34 • Wednesday, August 22, 2012 • www.arrowlakesnews.com • 250-265-3823 • $1.25
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Oil refinery proposed for Kitimat
Charles Maxfield displays a net weight, one of many in his collection. CLAIRE PARADIS/ARROW LAKES NEWS
Anthropological research starts with local artifacts By Claire Paradis Arrow Lakes News
If you travel up and down the shore of Upper Arrow Lake enough, you’re likely to find artifacts of first nation people who populated the area long before Europeans came here. In fact, you might have already held an artifact in your hand and not known it. When I arrived at the home of Charles Maxfield, situated at the top of a long and winding driveway that made me glad to have 4-wheel drive, I was greeted by a collection of hundreds of artifacts. Maxfield has lived in the area since he was just a toddler, and has been combing the beaches for decades. Charles Maxfield is the son of Dr. Fred Maxfield who came to practise medicine in Nakusp way back in the 1940s, and Charles was fortunate enough to grow up on the Upper Arrow Lakes during the run of the Minto. Maxfield became known as a collector of artifacts, and people in town began to give them ones that they had found. Picking a small, flat-bottomed pestle from the table full of shaped stones, Maxfield told me it had been painted green and used by a local family as a door stop. “They were often used as door stops,” he told me about the rocks that had once served as tools for the first peoples living along the river. The collector had set up his hammer and grinding stones on two tables in the sun, and had two or three more crates on the ground with various other rocks in them as well. Maxfield held up a flat rock with two clear
symmetrical notches high in either side, and explained that this rock had been a fishing weight that had kept a net vertical in the river so the most fish could be caught. “Once the fish were in, they’d pull a string and the stones would drop to the bottom of the river,” he said. With pride, he then showed me two rocks he found together near the Whatchan dam, one on top of the other, which were a lap plate and another tool rock. “Most people would just walk by these,” Maxfield said, but their subtle shaping caught his eye, so he picked them up. Were they made by the Sinixt, I asked? “I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t see the Sinixt making it so I don’t know. It could’ve been Kootenay or Okanagan Indians.” Another one of the guests invited to the day’s display arrived, Eileen Pearkes, a Nelson author who has written about the Sinixt and is working on another book about the history of the area beginning with first nations peoples to nearly present-day. She told me she is particularly interested in delving into the reasoning behind why the Columbia was chosen for hydroelectric dams. Pearkes, an articulate figure dressed in summer whites and a broad-brimmed hat, has lived in Nelson for 20 years now, although she is originally from California. She is very knowledgeable about the geography and history of the area, and travels widely collecting stories as part of her research for her book.
See story page 6
David Black shows a sample of thick bitumen from the Alberta oil sands. His proposal would keep diluted bitumen from being shipped in bulk from the B.C. coast. TOM FLETCHER/BLACK PRESS Black Press
A Victoria businessman is heading up a proposal to build a $13-billion oil refinery in Kitimat. David Black, chairman and owner of Black Press, announced Friday he wants to build a world scale oil refinery at Kitimat, B.C. Black told a news conference in Vancouver Friday he is submitting an environmental assessment application to build a “world scale” oil refinery on behalf of Kitimat Clean Ltd., a company owned by Black. The application to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office is expected this fall. The proposed refinery would be big enough to process all the diluted bitumen carried by Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. Black said he has had extensive discussions with Enbridge and other players in the Canadian oil industry, but none has so far offered to back the project. Black said he will use his own money to finance the proposal through environmental assessment, which he expects to cost several million dollars. After that, he said investors would be needed to complete it, assuming both the refinery and the pipeline receive approval. He has had preliminary meetings with
Kitimat and Terrace councils, as well as the Haisla and Kitselas First Nations in the region. The proposed site is a 3,000-hectare Crown industrial property between Terrace and Kitimat. Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan spoke by phone to the news conference, offering encouragement for the proposal. But Black acknowledged he does not yet have formal support from communities or investors. “I see myself as a catalyst to make this happen,” said Black, who first proposed the idea to the province and the industry seven years ago when he was chairman of the B.C. Progress Board. Black is working with Glenn McGinnis, a consulting engineer and former manager of the Ioco oil refinery in Port Moody. “We want it [the Kitimat refinery] to be the cleanest and greenest upgrading and refining site in the world,” McGinnis said. The refinery would produce 240,000 barrels per day of diesel, 100,000 barrels per day of gasoline and 50,000 barrels per day of kerosene or aviation fuel, refined from heavy oil. Among those attending the news conference was Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, a group in the Kitimat area that has strongly opposed the pipeline proposal. Sterritt disputed Black’s assertion that a B.C. refinery “solves half of the problem” with exported oil by shipping refined gasoline, jet fuel and diesel in tankers instead of heavy crude. Those products have their own risks, Sterritt said. Black pointed out that without marine shipments of those fuels, the remote coastal communities Sterritt represents would not be able to function. The lighter fuel products are still an environmental hazard, but they dissipate much more quickly and do not persist for many years like spilled heavy crude, he said. NDP energy critic John Horgan was also skeptical. “At this point, it’s a proposal without business partners and without First Nations and local community support,” Horgan said. “It doesn’t change our position [opposing] the Enbridge Northern Gateway project.” Black said the refinery will mean nearly 6,000 construction jobs over a five-year period, 3,000 permanent jobs at the refinery and tax revenue for various levels of government.
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