WESTERN PULP Partner-
ship’s Woodfibre pulp mill
in Howe Sound. which was
ordered fast week to install a
series of pollution control
measures by today or face
closure, will meet that April
18 deadline, a mill
spokesman said Tuesday.

By SUR) RATTAN
News Reporter

Last week B.C. Environment
Minister John Reynolds slapped a
pollution abatement order on the
pulp mill after it experienced its
third chemical spill in just over a
month.

At the time, company vice-
president John Lukosevicius said

Referendums rapped

he was surprised by the govern-
ment's environmental crackdown
and doubted whether the mill
could meet today’s deadline.

But on Tuesday, Woadfibre
technical and environmental man-
ager Bill Rempel! said most of the
\cork was complete and he ex-
pected the mill to meet today's
deadline.

Rempel! said most of the work
involved building containment
dykes around existing chemical
tanks.

The pollution abatement order
required Woodfibre to construct
chemical control devices around its
tanks large enough to hold 125 per

cent of the capacity of the largest
storage tank cn the site.

The order also directed Wood-
fibre to hire an independent,
ministry-approved consultant *‘to
conduct an environmental audit"
that would identify possidle spill
sources on the site and develop a
proper training program for staff.

In addition, the pollution
abatement order:
edirected that there be no drains
in the containment area for toxic
wastes;
ecalled for two-way radio contact
to be set up between the chemical
unloader and the storage tank per-
sonnel when dangerous goods are

at

. “+

NEWS photo Stuart Davis

HARSH WORDS for the Social Credit government's school budget referendum policy were heard at a
public meeting on that subject at Maplewood Community School fast week. The meeting's panel inctuded
(pictured left to right): North Vancouver Teachers* Association president Jack Stevens, NDP education critic
Anita Hagen, North Vancouver School Board chairman Rev. Roy Dungey and Ruth Herman of the Coali-

tion Against Rederendum Legislation.

‘Tough times’ predicted for NV schaols

From pege 1
begin in mid-May.

But Hocevar said the NVSB
should have stuck to its original
decision to hold a referendum.

“I’m very disappointed in the
school board. | expected them to
adopt a needs budget and they
backed down, which is what the
government expected them to
do,”’ said Hocevar.

He added that the board has
not mentioned any possible
CUPE layoffs in the 1990-91
school year.

**As far as we’re concerned, we
want every job a promise for our
mempbers,"’ said Hocevar.

He also called the education
ministry's block funding formula
‘a disaster,’’ saying ‘‘on the one
hand the provincial government
is running TV ads on prime time
saying how great the education
system is and on the other hand
they don't give us enough money
to continue on last year’s level."

North Vancouver Teachers’

Association president Jack

Stevens did not return News
phone calis for comment on the
possible layoff of up to 40 North
Vancouver teachers.

Last month the West Van-
couver District 45 School Board
passed its 1990-91 budget without
any debate.

Doug Hibbins, the education

ministry's executive director of

school finance formulas, said
under the new block funding
formula, the ministry calculates
‘all funding across the pro-
vince.’’ That figure, he said, will
increase to $2.6 billion in the
1990-91 school year from $2.4
billion in 1989-90.

After arriving at the provincial
“block of funding,’ the pro-
vince, said Hibbins, takes into

account such factors as the

average teacher salary in each
school district to come up with its
final per-pupil allocation for each
school district.

“if a district has a high
average teacher salary, it gets
more money because we have to

have teachers in the schools,"’
said Hibbins.

He added that the fiscal
framework also takes into ac-
count the number of students in
each school district, the number
of special education students, the
number of English As A Second
Language students, the number
of native students, and transpor-
tation and maintenance costs.

Hibbins said such costs vary in
each school district. The cost of
transportation, he said. would
for example be higher in the
Prince George school district
than in North Vancouver because
more students use buses to get to
schools in Prince George.

‘All of those factors affect the
relative cost of education,”' said
Hibbins. He added that the per-
pupil cost of education for the
coming school year will range
from $4,500 up to $10,000.

The average provincial cost-
per-pupil figure is $5,259. North
Vancouver's is $5,124, while
West Vancouver’s is $5.420.

3 - Wednesday, April 18, 1990 - North Shore News

Woodfibre expected to meet deadline

HOWE SOUND PULP MILL ORDERED TO INSTALL POLLUTION
CONTROL MEASURES BY TODAY OR FACE PLANT CLOSURE

being of f-loaded and transferred:
eordered the company “‘to ac.
quire and construct or carry out
any further works that are neces-
sary to control, abate or stop the
pollution.“

Reynolds. in whose West Yan-
couver-Howe Sound riding the mill
is ‘ocated, issued the abatement
order after an April 6 chemical
spill at the mill sent abour 500
galions of sodium chlorate solution
into Howe Sound after a tank on a
barge overflowed. That spill was
the latest in a series of chemical
spills to hit the mill.

On March 8, 500,000 litres of
black liquor was spilled at the mill

after a pump casing cracked, while
on the previous day. 15,000 Intres
of caustic soda solution flowed tn-
1o Howe Sound after a barge
overflowed.

tin February, 540,000 litres of
chlorine dioxide solution was
discharged into Howe Sound fol-
lowing a mechanical and computer
malfunction at Howe Sound Pulp
and Paper’s Port Mellon mill.

Las: week, the Port Mellon mill
in Howe Sound was charged with a
total of 59 pollution-related of-
fences under the Waste Manage-
ment Act.

Woodfibre still faces 12 poilu-
tion-related charges of its own.

public meeting

UNDEMOCRATIC, REGRESSIVE, and despicable were
some of the words used to describe the provincial gov-
ernment’s schoo! referendum legislation at a lively public
meeting in North Vancouver last Wednesday.

But others stated that the $2.2
million the North Vancouver
District 44 Schocl Board had
planned to seek in a referendum
to cover budget costs in the
1990-91 school year would
primarily pay for salary increases
for teachers and administrators.

“The referendum process that
has been forced on us is cynically
undemocratic because it divides
voters into separate camps,"* said
North Vancouver School Board
chairman Rev. Roy Dungey in
leading the evening's attack.

‘*Referendums are not used for
such issues as the GST, abortion,
the Carmanah Valley. Meech
Lake or the Coguihalla,’’ he
pointed out.

Dungey complained forcefully
that, in North Vancouver, simply
holding the referendum would
cost taxpayers $125,000, the
equivalent cost of educating 24
children.

“We are fighting a losing
cause, because the provincial
government is already running
TV ads against us."* he said, ad-
ding that, based on past experi-
ence, schoo! boards’ chances of
winning referendums are no more
than 25 per cent across the pro-
vince,

Of the 38 school referendums
held in B.C. to 1972, only eight
passed. The NDP government
abolished referendums that year.
None have been held since.

The $2.2 million extra fundies
the North Vancouver Schou
Board says it needs won't allow
for any improvements, according
to Dungey. [t would allow for
two additional teachers. The
number of students is expected to
increase by 305.

The schoo! district presently
serves 15,800 pupils and employs
1,400 staff, he said.

Anita Hagen. the NDP’s
education critic in the legislature, ©
told the meeting the referendum
bill is ‘‘a despicable piece of leg-

- islation.””

Hagen, MLA for New
Westminster. argued there are
two fundamental flaws in’ the
referendum concept.

**First, it cannot work to have
an annual referendum for the
operating costs of schools,"’ she
said.

“Second, you can’t put a sim-
ple yes or no decision to such ter-
ribly complex issues as education
and health."*

Hagen added that referendums
would result in a serious shortage
of teachers over the next 10
years, as well as a loss of energy
and educational innovation as
teachers become discouraged,

By PATRICK RAYNARD

Contributing Writer

Jack Stevens. president of the
North Vancouver Teachers’
Association, echoed Hagen‘s
warning that the climate of
uncertainty caused by annual
referendums would frighten
many young people away from
choosing teaching as an occupa-
tion.

“Already now, of all the
teachers who begin teaching in
B.C.. fully 44 per cent quit
within the first five years.”
Stevens told the gathering.

“Referendums will create a
have and a have-not approach to
education,” even within school
districts, Stevens said bitterly

“The quality of educuicr is
different above and below the
Upper Levels Highway in North
Vancouver," he said.

Stevens agreed with Hagen that
the government was using the
referendums to set up | conflict
on which to fight an elec:-on.

““Who is running this pro-
vince?’ is how the government
wants to set up the election.”
Stevens said, ‘The filthy, grasp-
ing teachers or the ‘good people’
who keep putting money into the
ie

Two former North Vancouver
school trustees added fire to the
debate by forcefully disagreeing
with the four invited panelists.

Margie Goodman, who sat on
the board in 1982-83, accused
Stevens and his unionized col-
leagues of planning to exploit the
$2.2 million extra increase to
eventually demand higher
salaries.

“The government may very
well be using referendums to cap
teachers’ salaries that have been
going up and up,’’ Goodman
said.

“Half the trustees’ campaigns
are run by the teachess and paid
for by the teachers’? who only
want constant increases in
salaries, Goodman told the
News.

“The trustees can't sland ref-
erendums because tue, don’t
want to justify what they’re
spending,”’ she said, adding that
a referendum is unnecessary
because *‘there’s plenty of money
within the provincial
framework.”

Ernie Sarsfield, who was a
school trustee in 1979-80, quoted
a current North Vancouver
School Board proposal showing
that administration costs alone
should increase by more than 30
per cent,