Happy Thanksgiving
107th Year - Week 41
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
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Winter whispers CARDIAC CASH $ for stress test at health foundation gala
NEWS/A5
STEELHEAD LOSS Steelheads drop first game 9-4 in Terrace.
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Hudson Bay Mountain is covered with a wisp of snow after cooler temperatures moved into the Bulkley Valley last week. Grant Harris photo
SWEET STUFF Plans for a honey industry in the Hazeltons
Northern Gateway holds open houses By Chris Gareau Houston/Interior News
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The first information session on Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project was held Sept. 30 in Houston. The “Let’s Talk” open house was one of 10 held in B.C. and Alberta communities along the proposed route that would bring bitumen oil west to be shipped overseas from Kitimat in one pipe. A second pipe would send the required chemicals to move that bitumen back east to the Bruderheim pump station north of Edmonton. “Houston’s an important part of our project of course, our pipelines will run just south of Houston and we’ve actually got a pump station that will be located just south of Houston,” said Donny van Dyk, Northern
Gateway coastal aboriginal and community relations manager, at the open house. Other communities visited in B.C. this month include Burns Lake and Fort St. James, where there are also planned pump stations, Fraser Lake, Prince George, Terrace, and Kitimat, which is the last stop in B.C. for phase one meetings Thursday. Northern Gateway has three engagement phases: phase two starts in March, and three is scheduled for late next year or early 2016. “This go-around we are in communities that are as close and affected by our project as we can be,” said van Dyk when asked why there was no meeting planned in Smithers, which is nearly the same distance north from the proposed route as Prince George is south. “It doesn’t preclude us from being active in Smithers. We
were in Telkwa for a presentation to council earlier in the year... and we will I’m sure be back in Smithers and Telkwa, but for this particular trip we tried to focus at this juncture on the communities that were closest and most affected by our project,” explained van Dyk. The community consultations had industry experts in a variety of areas to answer questions. The engagement by Enbridge is part of the approval conditions set out by the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel and agreed to by the federal government in June. Tables with bitumen samples, interactive maps, and a sample piece of pipe made from the same materials planned for use in the $6.5 billion, 1,177-kilometre-long project were spread inside the Houston Community Hall. Phase one condition plans covered by the displays,
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information packages, and USB sticks handed out are available online at Enbridge’s gatewayfacts. ca. They include the traditional land use investigation, pipeline environmental effects monitoring, marine environmental effects monitoring, marine mammal and construction marine mammal protection, construction environmental protection and management, wetlands functional assessment, and socio-economic effects monitoring. “Each one of these stations is manned by an expert in the field with a working draft plan that they’re able to share information on and, more importantly, collect information back from citizens so that it can be incorporated into the final plan that will eventually be submitted to the National Energy Board,” said van Dyk. See FIRST NATIONS on A2
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