Flotilla to protest pollution A WEST VANCOUVER-based environment group is organizing a flotilla of. fishermen, marina owners and rec- reational boaters this Sunday to protest the recent closure of commercial crab fishing in Howe Sound and what its repre- sentatives say is the continuing degradation of Howe Sound’s environment by the waterway’s two pulp mills. The protest, according to En- vironmental Watch spokesman Terry Jacks, will be open to any- one concerned about the future of Howe Sound. “Come out and protest,’’ Jacks said Monday, ‘‘we can’t sit on our behinds. Now is the time for ac- tion. We have got to stop the poisons now.”” Vessels in the protest flotilla, which is subtitled ‘Stop the Poisons Now’, will assemble at 10 a.m. at the north tip of Bowyer Island (not Bowen), just off Sunset Marina, and proceed in single file to Howe Sound’s Port Mellon and Woodfibre pulp mills. t talist Terry Jacks ...‘‘we can’t sit on our behinds.’ Jacks said he will take along a bag of gerbage to deposit on the properties of the two mills as a symbolic gesture. “For. years they’ve thrown their deadly toxins into our air and water against our existing en- vironmental laws, so we are going to throw our garbage back at them,” he said. Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced iast Wednesday the closure of commercial crab fishing in Howe Sound because of conti- nuing high levels of dioxins and furans found in Howe Sound fish samples. The samples were analyzed in a joint study by federal fisheries and environment departments and the two Howe Sound pulp mills. Both mills are currently in- stituting dioxin-reduction plans as Business ...... Classified Ads..........41 Doug Collins..... Dr. Ruth....... Editorial Page. . Bob Hunter...... kifestyles .............37 Mailbox ..........0000007 Horth Shore Now.. By TIMOTHY RENSHAW : News Reporter ordered last month by the provin- cial government. Canfor has announced that it will sink $88 miilion in en- vironmental improvements into its new $1 billion mill overhaul at Port Mellon, and Western Pulp Ltd. Partnership (WPLP), Wood- fibre’s owner, has committed $70 million to improve the mill’s ef- fluent quality. The new Port Mellon mill, ac- cording to Canfor, will reduce the chlorinated organics in its effluent from the current eight kg. per tonne to 1.5 kg. per tonne by July 1990, which is 4'4 years ahead of the provincial government’s Dec. 31, 1994 deadline. But the mill's pulp production will also increase from 660 tonnes per day to 1,000 tonnes per day. Canfor'’s environment vice- president Kirke MacMillan said Tuesday the company ‘‘is going as fast as it can’? to reduce the amount of dioxin it pumps into Howe Sound. “What the environmentalists have to accept,'’ he said, ‘‘is that you can’t change a pulp mill over- night." In addition to Environmental Watch, such area businesses as Sewell’s Marina in Horseshoe Bay will be involved in Sunday's pro- test. Sewell’s owner Danny Sewell said, ‘Enough is enough. If we the people don’t start to demand some results and insist now on some- thing being done, we will be en- vironmentally bankrupt...we will end up with a desert. The whole system has tolerated the mills too long.’ The June 14 crab fishing closure followed initial Nov. 30, 1988 commercial and recreational closures of crab, shrimp and prawn fisheries in areas adjacent to Howe Sound's two pulp mills after results from Fisheries and Oceans Canada tests showed extremely high levels of dioxins and furans in Howe Sound fish sarnples. In addition to the Howe Sound-wide crab closure, closed areas for commercial and recre- ational shrimp and prawn fishing were also extended last Wednes- day. Sports ... TY Listings What's Going On WEATHER Wednesday, claudy with a chance. of showers. Thursday, mainly sunny. Highs near Second Class Registration Nunaber 3885 The expansion’s $2 million phase one began last December and is part of a two-phase upgrade that will expand the yard’s ship repair capabilities. Included in the phase-one ex- pansion was a relocation of the yard’s ship repair centre and construction of a new electrical department shop. In addition, the first phase in- LONSDALE AND CAPILANO-HOWE Sound MP Mary Collins cut the official ribbon Friday on the ne couver Shipyards as Seaspan International president (right), Allen Fowlis, looks on. Seaspan, which owns the North Vancouver shipyard, is expasding the yard to make it more competitive in ship repair. $2 MILLION PROJECT Shipyard expansion opens NORTH VANCOUVER'S Vancouver Shipyards official- ly unveiled its new expanded facilities Friday. cludes the reworking of power cables to ensure a more even distribution of electric power for the yard’s three substations, ex- pansion of working space in the yard’s stores building, and the installation of a linking roof be- tween the north end of the machine shop and the south cnd of the stores building to increase capacity. Capilano-Howe Sound MP UPPER LEVELS NEWS photo Tom why expanded Van- Mary Collins, who cut the ribbon at Friday’s ceremony, said the expansion would make Van- couver Shipyards more cost effi- cient and competitive in the ship-repair market. Vancouver Shipyards is located on 40 acres of North Shore waterfront. Its corporate parent, Seaspan International Ltd., is Canada's largest tug and barge company, operating 45 tugs, twe trainships and 240 special pur- pose barges. Overpass contract awarded A CONSTRUCTION contract has finally been awarded for the long-delayed overpass at Lonsdale Avenue and the Up- per Levels Highway. North Vancouver-Capilaao MLA Angus Ree announced Monday that Langley’s Miller Contracting \.td. has won the $10.9 milion controct to build the new $22 million overpass. “AC long last,’’ Ree said. The 2¥3-year project’s four- Stage construction will maintain two lanes of traffic in both direc- tions at all times. Final overpass design calls for the Upper Levels to dip under Lonsdale to allow for free highway flow, and a bridge will be bulit at Lonsdale with on-off ramps at ei- ther end. Work is expected to begin short- ly end is scheduled to be completed by the end of October 1991. Announcement of 2 $30-million project to build highway over- EVERGREEN HOUSE Nursing staff returns to AN APPEAL panel has approved 100 per cent nursing support staff in Lions Gate Hospital’s Evergreen House ex- tended care unit during the current strike by the B.C. Nurses’ Union. LGH president Robert Smith said Monday the designation, which was approved by mediator Stephen Keileher, relieved the crit- ical health care situation faced by‘ Evergreen residents. Last week, Smith said lives of the extremely elderly patients in the extended care unit would be in jeopardy if the number of nursing staff designated essential was not increased. Prior to Thursday’s approval, nurses’ aide staffing in Evergreen was at weekend levels. Combined with the reduction of other services during the current labor dispute, Smith said management did not passes at both Lonsdale Avenue and Westview Drive was originally made in October 1985. Construc- tion was schedab.¢ += degin in ear- ly 1986. Design work Is continuing on the Westview overpass. Total cost of the Lonsdeie inter- change includes pre-construction land acquisition, engineering, con- sulting, materials, the actual con- struction, and finu! finishing. Miller Contracting submitted the lowest of five tenders to win the contract. LGH facility have enough people to do much more than feed the 294 Evergreen residents. The restoration of the number of Hospital Employees Union nurses’ aides in Evergreen, he said, had ‘‘allayed fears about their (pa- tients’) health.”” - But he added that the hospital still faced problems with such aspects of Evergreen patient care as housekeeping, Jaundry and nutrition. Diesel fuel spills into Mannion Bay APPROXIMATELY 500 GALLONS of diesel fuel spilled into Mannion Bay at Gambier Island Monday afternoon after a two-inch pipe on a logging company fuel storage tank broke. Environment Canada and Fjsh- ~eries and Oceans investigators were called to the scene just after noon. According to a Canadian Coast Guard spokesman, the logging company managed to contain some of the fuel with booms. The mop-up continued with absorbents located by the company in Port Melion. : Investigation into the case of the spill continues.