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Sentinel
Northern
Years est. 1954
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 60 No. 33
RTA planning terminal expansion With Rio Tinto Alcan having offered up their Terminal B wharf to LNG Canada for their purposes, RTA now turns to expanding their Terminal A to meet demands. The company held an open house last Thursday evening that provided an overview of their proposal, which they hope can begin construction in late 2015, once all their permits are in place. The new terminal will basically lengthen their existing terminal outwards, reaching directly across from Hospital Beach. Vice-president of Business Development and Strategic Projects Paul Henning, who guided open house visitors through the proposal, said that there is potential for short-term closures of Hospital Beach over this time, although the reason would be heavy industrial traffic on the road, rather than construction on the water. That said, the company is looking for a “long term” solution for Hospital Beach. When asked by the Sentinel if there was existing RTA land that could serve as a potential replacement for Hospital Beach he cautiously offered up an area at Minette Bay as a possibility, but he didn’t want to hype that option up too much at this stage. “We think that from a recreational perspective it could be a nice balance,” said Henning. “If I had a hesitation in saying that, it’s because it’s not instant, it’s not something we can pull up to this afternoon and it’s ready to go.” He said that it does hold potential for a longterm plan but he also said it could not work out there. “We hear the community loud and clear about [how] it’s the only coastal community without its own waterfront access. We’d like to be part of that solution,” he added. The construction of Terminal A’s expansion will be Shell Canada supported he said, but managed by Rio Tinto. “We call it the replacement infrastructure project,” he said. With an anticipation of receiving required permits by 2015, he hopes work begins in earnest late that year, with the bulk of the project completed in 2016 for a 2017 launch date. The new terminal would allow two Handymax vessels (which are 46,500 dead weight tonnes), which maintains the capacity the smelter had between uses of Terminal A and B. The anticipated 2017 start up date will coincide well with other projects in the area, said Henning. “That’s nice because really the LNG facility will then be in construction and we’ll be stabilized as a smelter operation and be able to get out of that [wharf] and allow LNG Canada to move on.”
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
1.30 INCLUDES TAX
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A fire in an apartment building on Nalabila Boulevard is under investigation. One person was treated for smoke inhalation but only two of the eight apartments burned in the late night blaze. More on page 3
Civilian overseer stops in Kitimat Cameron Orr Presentations introducing communities to the Independent Investigations Office of BC were held across the northwest recently. Investigators were in Kitimat last Thursday speaking to interested community members explaining the history and the role of the organization, which is an independent investigator of police incidents involving serious harm or death. The group is coming up to their second year in operation and came about from recommendations following some high profile police cases, including the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007. The IIOBC is funded through the Ministry of Justice but investigators do not report to the government with their findings and so operate at a distance from judicial influence. “Any decisions as to the conduct of files and how they’re determined is strictly within the purview of the chief civilian director,” said Senior Investigator Ralph Krenz. “So his decision making is independent from government because he doesn’t have to clear it through any other channels.” Krenz says the IIOBC has essentially two options when it concludes an investigation, either exonerate the officers involved, or pass the report to Crown counsel for possible prosecution.
That said, there is a very low threshold for sending to Crown. So if the IIOBC thinks it is possible a crime may have been committed it will hand it to the Crown, but the Crown has a higher standard of determining if a case should go to trial. “If we do find that there was any criminality associated to the action then we would forward a report to the Crown counsel for their determination.” He said about 65 per cent of their files occur in the Lower Mainland, with the rest spread around all of B.C. With it not quite being two years old, the organization can’t put a pin on any particular trends. “It’s just too early in the day to come up with any trends or analysis of that type,” he said. “We’ll probably need about five years worth of data...There’s nothing at this point in time that would suggest any kind of trends.” At the end of the last fiscal year of March 31, 2014, the IIOBC received 223 notifications from police for possible incidents. From that they declined 105 as not falling under their scope. Sixty of those files had an initial investigation where it was later found an incident was not under their mandate. About 25 per cent of cases did get a complete investigation. Continued on page 11
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Paving way to 2014 Peace Day ... page 3