WEDNESDA? August 7, 1956

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

BBC hound

« WHEN the Royal Hudson steamed away from Porteau Cove Sunday,

~ Michael Palin of Monty Python fame was aboard for the ride. Palin was ‘filming an episode of Palin's Pacitic, a British Broadcasting Corporation

series chronicling great rail journeys.

At issue: seizure of evidence from NY Chemical plani

By lan Noble and Brent Mudry News Reporters

ENVIRONMENT Canada has appealed a B.C. Supreme Court ruling ordering the federal agency to return extensive

internal operating records to CanadianOxy Chemicals Ltd.

A Jaly 2 ruling said the tapes and documents were improperly seized during two searches by environment officials.

Environment Canada wants to use the records in an upcoming trial against Canadian!

Federal Justice D partment lawyer Digby Kier is handiing the case for E

‘Canada.

He said simular searches are often conducted in connection with environmental offences. Kier said the CanadianOxy case could help determine what is or is not allowed to be d,

He believes the July 2 ruling by Mr. Justice Jon Sigurdson too narrowly restricts what can be taken.

“It’s not. fatal, but it’s important to our

¢,” said Kier of the effect returning the mate- tial to CanadianOxy would have on Environment Canada’s case against the chemical company.

‘The trial stems from an Oct. 13, 1994 inci-

; By tan Noble News Reporter

LISA Hummell paid her bills by mail July 29.

She placed two cheques in the mail- box at Beaumont and Highland in North Vancouver.

But the payments didn’t travel to their destinations.

They ended up in a gutter afi

Hummell’s letters and those_ of other: were removed from the mailbox.

Fortunately, Janet Walker returned the cheques to Hummeil Aug. 1, but Hummell said other people may want

Wo pin wat

you want whon you need it!

Cell 980-7300

to know what could have happened to their letters and bill payments.

“It’s like an invasion of privacy,” said Hummell.

“PIL never use a public mailbox again, You can’t put your mail in the mailbox safely.”

One of the cheques was ripped up, said Hummell.

Walker lives near the tipped mailbox. Her husband found the mail in the gut- ters of the house.

Children who had been hiding beside the Walker garage stuck eight or nine pieces of opened mail there, she said.

The mail included photographs,

something in Chinese characters and cheques, said Hummel.

Another woman in the neighbor- hood returned unopened mail she found lying on the ground to residents, said Walker.

Bob Taylor, Canada Post’s manager of communications for — British Columbia, said mailboxes are over- turned occasionally in Lower Mainland.

It’s usually kids seeing if there is any thing valuable inside, he said

Taylor said new mailboxes contain baffles that inake it difficult to get mail out.

Sall, don’t send cash in the mail, Taylor said.

Thursday: Sunnny and bot High 30°C, low

dent. A power outage at CanadianOxy’s North Vancouver chlor-alkali plant caused. a general shutdown of the plant's systems.

A valve in the sea water system failed, which released a chlorine compound deemed danger- ous to fish.

Soon after the spill, environmental officials seized samples of dead fish from CanadianOxy, as well as monitoring and analysis records of chlorine discharge levels from the plant.

As Environment Canada’s investigation into possible Criminal Code or Fisheries Act viola- tions mounted, officials sought internal CanadianOxy records detailing the company’s due diligence efforts to control its chemicals and avoid such spills,

Armed with a search warrant, 10 officials searched CanadianOxy’s plant on March 17, 1995 and seized extensive company records.

A second warranted search six weeks later resulted in the seizure of more records.

Written and recorded information taken included:

corresponden @ memoranda; B letters; B minutes of meetings; @ inter-office correspondence; @ operating procedure manuals,; @ environmental incident reports and incident investigation notes; Mf chlorine operators’ records; B clectrical schematic diagrams; @ effluent temperatures and flow rates from the chlorine process area and the final effluent dis- charging into Burrard [nlet. ‘ On an application to obtain the search war- rant, an official said the information would show

See Court page 3

NEWS photo by Mike Wakefield

LISA Hummel (left) deposited her bill payments in a local mailbox, but they ended up in Janet Walker's gutter.