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Sentinel
Northern
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 61 No. 26
Chevron to fix up fish habitat Cécile Favron An ambitious plan is underway to replace fish habitat impacted during site preparation for a planned large liquefied natural gas (LNG) project near Kitimat. But the new habitat won't be anywhere near the planned Kitimat LNG project at Bish Cove in the Douglas Channel off the Kitimat Arm. Instead, Chevron wants to construct new habitat 35 kilometres north across the Kitimat River and up the Wedeene Forest Service Road at Cecil Ponds and Cecil Creek. Damage to Bish Cove habitat is acknowledged in a report which outlines the compensation project, describing it as an “unavoidable loss” during work there between 2011 and late 2014. The damage was authorized by federal fisheries officials on the condition that the habitat was then replaced. The plan is to connect Cecil Ponds to Cecil Creek together with channels, said Gillian Robinson from Chevron. “There is [currently] no access from the ponds to the creeks,” Robinson explained of the chosen location. “We are building channels so that juveniles can winter there because the ponds are warmer than the creeks which leads to better survival.” Cecil Creek connects to the Kitimat River and then to the ocean so that, in effect, Chevron wants to build a transit route from the ponds through the creek to the ocean. The site is expected to develop habitat for Pacific salmon (coho), rainbow and cuttroat trout, and Dolley Varden char, and such a project is common for industrial projects around water, said Robinson. Continued on page 3
Long-time teacher reflects on career.
/page 5 AltaGas outlines plans for LNG in Kitimat. /page 6 PM477761
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Wednesday, July 1, 2015
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Responders to the rescue The Kitimat Marine Rescue Society were invited to Prince Rupert’s Seafest, to celebrate with the Prince Rupert Marine Rescue group. The Prince Rupert group used the time — and the presence of four other rescue units in town — to do maintenance, putting Kitimat and others on stand-by for calls. En route to Prince Rupert, Kitimat responded to a distress call of a vessel which had lost power, and needed tow back to Port Edward. On their way back to Kitimat they responded to another call of a boat with lost power, thankfully much closer to town and only needed a few minutes to be brought back to the Rio Tinto Alcan boat launch. Kitimat performed the rescues with a crew of four. Above is a photo from the first incident near Prince Rupert. Kitimat Marine Rescue Society Facebook page
Recycling programs will extend landfill life Cameron Orr It can depend on a number of factors, but the Kitimat landfill may have just 40 years left before the landfill is land-full. That’s an estimate provided by the Director of Engineering Tim Gleig based on a landfill survey recently received by the town — which is so new in the office he hasn’t read to the end of it yet — but that estimated life span may give pause to think for city council. Councillors, at a June 22 Committee of the Whole meeting, reviewed recycling options, with an eye at landfill diversion tactics, from an expert in recycling projects in B.C., Maura Walker. Walker has worked extensively in the province on recycling, including within our or Kitimat-Stikine Regional District. She points to studies showing that in the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, per person, people toss about 750 kilograms worth of trash. Only about 10 per cent of that is diverted from landfills. Provincially, she said, the average is 570 kg a person. Aside from lengthening the lifespan of a community’s landfill, diverting products has a number of benefits, including job creation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, she said. Province-wide she says there are efforts in the works to drop the per-capita trash rate to just 350 kg a person by 2020. She said the pressures that other jurisdictions have had for
landfills hasn’t quite reached Northern B.C. yet but she said it will happen. Meanwhile the cost of creating a landfill is expected to increase while new regulatory requirements of landfill closure will also add to cost pressures. For illustrative purposes she pointed to Nanaimo which has a 70 per cent landfill diversion rate. Better diversion can be had by developing curbside recycling, or putting landfill restrictions on easily diverted material. Commercial cardboard in Kitimat is already banned at the landfill. There is a will from council to develop recycling initiatives. Mario Feldhoff said it makes him sick to see everything that goes in to the Kitimat landfill. “There are things we can do, we can learn from other communities,” he said. He called for council to have a workshop in the near future to discuss what to do with recycling in the community. Germuth agreed, saying it should include all the local stakeholders in the issue. The estimate of Kitimat’s landfill’s lifespan of 40 years includes an expansion of the property to the east, which would occur once the phase 3 capacity is reached in 2034, based on a “medium high growth rate” of 43 per cent from 2011 to 2031, and no change in the diversion rate. So basically if the town manages to develop recycling programs to divert waste from the landfill, we’ll see a longer lifespan for our dump than just 40 years.