THURSDAY
S I N C E
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OCTOBER 25, 2012 Vol. 117, Issue 203
110
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Fortuitous fill up in Warfield Page 2
INCLUDING H.S.T.
PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Proposed Greyhound route cuts impact Trail passengers BY GUY BERTRAND Times Staff
JIM BAILEY PHOTO
Trail native and head coach of the national sledge hockey team Mike Mondin goes over a few drills with players during its selection camp this week at the Cominco Arena. The players’ skills will be on full display today and the public is invited to watch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the arena. The Spud Shack will be open for lunch and elementary students will be in attendance to share their enthusiasm with these Olympic athletes.
Teck puts mega project on hold Global economy prompts company to rein in spending BY GUY BERTRAND Times Staff
Teck Trail Operations announced Wednesday that it will put its construction of the $210 million No. 4 Furnace Project on hold. The company cited uncertain global economic conditions behind the decision to defer the project indefinitely. The project is on hold not cancelled, said Richard Deane, Teck’s public affairs manager. “Firstly, global market conditions are such that Teck is getting our capital spending in line with our current cash flow,” explained Deane. “And the deferral of the
No. 4 Furnace Project is part of a package of projects where spending is either being deferred or slowed down.” Impact on staff is expected to be negligible. “The Teck employees who were dedicated to this project are going to be deployed to other areas of Trail Operations. There is still some continued work required in order to fully prepare the area of the No. 4 project for a restart when we make a decision to restart construction. “The contract work that would have occurred will now be postponed until we make a decision to restart.” The deferral of the furnace project is the only one to affect Trail Operations with other projects in Chile, Alberta and elsewhere in B.C.
also impacted. “Teck remains committed to the long-term sustainability of Trail Operations,” said Greg Belland, general manager, Trail Operations, in a press release. “Current production, including end-of-life electronics and lead acid battery recycling, will not be impacted by deferral, and construction of the $125 million No. 1 Acid Plant will continue.” The No. 4 Furnace Project was designed to increase Teck’s capacity for recycling end-of-life electronics. The project was unveiled in September 2011 and preliminary work had begun with site preparation and allocation of space. The major excavation and construction of the No. 4 Furnace building itself has
not yet commenced, the company said in its release. When Teck announced the construction of the furnace last year, it included the construction of a new slag fuming furnace and settling furnace to be located in a building at the southeast corner of the property, overlooking downtown and the Columbia River. Trail Operations began recycling televisions, computers and other electronic items on a trial basis in 2006, and was designated as a reprocessing site when the B.C. program started up in 2007. After completing a $6-million feasibility study in 2010, the project received public approval at information sessions. See story on Teck’s quarterly report on Page 2.
Dogged by poor ridership, Greyhound Canada is proposing reducing the frequency of trips through the Kootenays. The company’s application is now in the hands of the Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) after the period of public notification and input process ended today. “The Passenger Transportation Board will weigh the pros and cons and make their decision,” explained Grant Odsen, the regional manager for Greyhound Canada. Although Greyhound buses do not pass through Trail, passengers are shuttled to Castlegar by the Silver City Stage Lines to make connections on routes from Kelowna to Calgary. However, due to lack of ridership, Greyhound is proposing cutting back on the number of trips it makes through the Kootenay corridor, one of 16 proposed route reductions in B.C. Currently there is one trip each way (between Kelowna and Calgary), each day, seven days a week. In addition, there is another trip each way three days per week. On alternating routes those three days can either be Thursday to Saturday or Friday to Sunday, said Odsen.
See BUSES, Page 20
CENSUS
English remains top language locally THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA - Trail remains primarily a unilingual community, new census data shows - evidence that as major metropolitan cities grow ever more multicultural and multilingual, the dominant mother tongue in many parts of the country remains one of Canada’s official languages. English was identified as the mother tongue for 89.7 per cent of people in Trail, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it released new information on languages from the 2011 census. French, Canada’s other official language, was cited by 0.9 per cent. A total of 9.5 per cent of the population of Trail reported a mother tongue other than one of Canada’s official languages. That’s a decrease from 13.1 per cent in the 2006 census. According to the 2011 census, the top five non-official languages spoken in Trail: Italian (5.1 per cent); German (0.8 per cent); one of the Chinese languages (0.5 per cent); Russian
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