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www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 57 No. 48
David Black’s overseas trip positive for refinery plan Cameron Orr Kitimat Clean President David Black says the response to his Kitimat-based refinery proposal in Japan and China has been positive, while his critics in the oil sands have been growing more silent. Black, also Chairman of Black Press, the newspaper chain which owns the Northern Sentinel, spent his Halloween, and the days after, travelling to Tokyo then to Beijing to pitch his refinery plan to about a dozen companies. Each company he spoke with has asked for more information, he said, while at least one is planning a trip to Canada in December to speak to him further. “It was all pretty positive. Everybody was interested, everybody wanted more information and not one of them said ‘well, no, we’re not interested.’,” said Black. In addition he said each company also inquired about their ability to potentially invest in the proposed refinery. Black said there is the opportunity for minority stakes but he would want to keep the company controlled in Canada. Black said he’s baffled by early critics to the plan who had suggested Asian markets did not want to import refined fuels. “I never understood that. That’s what [John] Horgan and others said. I never understood where they got that information from,” he said. “There’s a big market in refined fuel. In fact it was the single biggest export from the United States last year. They sold $88 billion in refined fuel.” While Black has plans to visit other countries, including Korea, he said Japan and China both have strong reasons for getting behind a Kitimat refinery. In China the reason is fairly straight-forward; they need more oil each year, said Black, and their option is to build their own refineries or get it from Canada. Getting it from us would be cheaper, Black argues, and better for the environment. China’s main source of power for refineries would be burning coal. “So if they let us build a refinery instead, they don’t have the same pollution issue.” The situation in Japan is a bit more unique. Black said that they’re actually at over capacity for refinery production, but the changing supply of oil means they have serious investments to make in the future. Continued on page 3
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
1.34 INCLUDES TAX
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Two wolves are shown near the boat launch at Hospital Beach. The family of wolves had become too accustomed to humans and had to be destroyed. Photo by Anne McRae
Habituated wolves from the Hospital Beach destroyed Cameron Orr A pack of wolves which had grown cozy feeding off the kindness of strangers were destroyed on Nov. 14 because they had become too habituated to human contact. Area conservation officer Dale Kluivers confirmed last week that the wolves, which to some people had been an attraction around the Hospital Beach area, had become way too comfortable around humans, a dangerous thing to be when you’re a wild animal. Two wolves had been seen for about two weeks prior to Kluivers arrival to their hangout and he said in all there was a family of five. “They were very habituated. When I came there they came right to the truck,” he said. “They were really looking for handouts.” He said conversations with Rio
Tinto Alcan employees revealed that the wolves would actually follow people around who parked at the beach and got out of their vehicles. “By feeding them...they get so accustomed to human food that it decreases their natural food gathering skills,” said Kluivers. “They should be hunting deer and moose with their family.” The potential danger to humans is that if they don’t receive a steady supply of food once they’re habituated like these ones are, they can get quite bold in their behaviour. Kluivers suspects these wolves were being fed by people in the summer and through the fall but as the weather got colder people stopped coming by as often. “Because they ware so skinny, I think they just didn’t know how else to get their food anymore.”
Maryann Ouellet, who manages the Kitimat Humane Society shelter, said that they initially heard about the wolves when they received a call about a “mangy looking dog.” When she got there she found one of the wolves laying on a rock. She thought it was a coyote at first. Speaking to the Sentinel before the wolves were destroyed, she said she already knew what likely lay in store for the animals, due to the fact they were being fed. “You’ve basically just signed their death warrant,” she said. Efforts were made by her to try to get the wolves into a wildlife shelter, but wolves cannot be legally trapped without receiving special permits, and Kluivers thinks destroying them was actually the best option for them. Continued on page 2
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