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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 $1.19 plus 6 GST, $1.25 U. S.Printed in Canada Volume 115 Number 22

Its been a learning experiencethat bridges thousands of milesas a district First Nation hostedan exchange group from Hondu-ras over the past week.

Nigigoonsiminikaaning FirstNation was proud to welcomethe six guests who hail fromthe Pech tribe, which is made

up of eight remote communitiesin Honduras, Chief Gary Allennoted.

InsideInside

See story on A2

Call it an up-lifting story.After fundraising efforts by

Safeway here, local teen WilliamMoody Jr. now has a brand newportable lift to help with his mo-bility.

Moody, who was born withspina bifida and requires awheelchair to get around, was

selected by Safeway staff to befocus of its 2007-08 We Carecampaign.

LifestylesLifestyles

See story on A6

Both the Muskie senior andjunior girls basketball teams im-proved to 2-0 on the NorWOS-SA season with victories over theKenora Broncos here Monday.

The seniors stretched theirlead to 23-13 by the midway point of the fourth quarter, buta late push by the Broncos hadthem within a three-pointerwhen the final buzzer sounded,with the Muskies surviving ascare 23-20.

SportsSports

See story on B1

Honduran groupshares, learns here

Lift means bettermobility for teen

Muskie hoopstersstay undefeated

www.fortfrances.comemail: info@fortfrances.com ISSN 0834-6283 PAP No. 07429

ISSN 0834-6283

By Duane HicksStaff writer

The Town of Fort Frances is preparing a new fence bylaw forcouncils consideration, which willrelax the rules regarding cornersight triangles as well as fences andhedges on corner lots.

Planning and Development su-perintendent Rick Hallam said yes-terday that during a recent reviewof Bylaw 13/01, one of the biggestconcernsand source of controver-sywas the issue of safety at in-tersections where sight is impededby an over-height fence, hedge, orother visual obstruction.

As directed, Planning and De-velopment staff researched munici-

palities across Ontario in regards tocorner sight triangles, and foundthat the concept has been includedin many municipal zoning or fencebylaws across Ontario.

By Peggy RevellStaff writer

Negotiations are underway withthe province as Family and Chil-dren Services of the Rainy RiverDistrict is facing a budget shortfallthat could see it run low of cashbefore years end.

Family and Children Servicesof the District of Rainy River iscurrently in dialogue with the Min-istry of Children and Youth Ser-

vices regarding funding issues,Bob McGreevy, president of the board of directors of FACS, saidlast week.

Declining provincial revenues has led to funding reductions tochild welfare agencies across the

province, he noted.FACS is working closely with

the ministry to address the fundingshortfall and to ensure that childwelfare services continue withoutinterruption, he stressed.

While he declined to give anexact amount of how short FACSmay be, McGreevy said it was asignificant amount.

Were hoping to have workedout something before the end ofNovember. So thats our hope, andthat depends on many things, hesaid, noting the ministry is the onlysource of funding for FACS.

The shortfall comes as a resultof several factors, McGreevy said,most all of which the board sees as

Talks aim to resolvecash crunch at FACS

By Peggy RevellStaff writer

Couchiching First Nation resi-dents still are waiting for actionand answers from federal agen-cies months after engineering testsrevealed high levels of contamina-tion at the former site of the J.A.Mathieu sawmill.

Absolutely nothing has changedfor residents, said Lisa McPherson,

whose family home is within theidentified site that stretches alongHarrys Road off Highway 11.

Instead, she noted testing contin-uesthis time for six newly-identi-fied chemicals that are present ontop of the high levels of PCDDs andPCDFs identified in soil, ground-water, and dust samples taken byDST Consulting Engineering.

But at this point, the main objec-tive should be to get people outof there, not just continue withtesting, stressed Amanda Jourdain,whose family was relocated earlierthis year as a precautionary mea-sure and now are renting a housein Fort Frances.

They have declared in all thereports, in the air sampling, inthe dust samplings, groundwaterand soil, theyve all come back [atwhats] called unacceptable hu-man health risk, she noted.

Our main point is that theyneed to get the people out of there,and how bad does it have to get?

Move the people first and then

they can test for 10 years andspend a godawful amount of mon-ey if they want to, Jourdain add-ed. But the people and the kidsshouldnt have to stay there and beaffected by it.

It would make just senseget[everyone] out, quarantine the areaoff, dont let anybody back, agreedMcPherson. Then they could taketheir time cleaning it upnot thatthey shouldbut at least were not

sitting here during this.This is inevitable, so why dragit out? Its ridiculous, absolutelyridiculous, she fumed, pointingout many of the families alreadycould have been bought out withthe money INAC has put into test-ing alonea number theyve beentold is $1.2 million.

Like the Jourdains, the McPher-sons relocated in March but even-tually returned back to their homedue to mental and financial stress.While they were the only twofamilies relocated, the range ofcontamination stretches to includedozens of family homes in thearea.

While it originally was assumedthe contaminants arose from theformer dipping pond of the J.A.Mathieu sawmill site, further his-torical research by DST has foundthat the site and surrounding areashave been used for other activities,such as wood treatment using zincchloride as early as 1911, as well

By Duane HicksStaff writer

While theres no doubt the forestindustry is suffering, its possiblethe emerging bioeconomy couldbe an integral part of NorthwesternOntarios economy in the futurealbeit only if the primary industrycan get the support it needs tosurvive.

Thats the message local Abitibi-Bowater mill manager John Har-

rison offered Friday to delegatesattending the Northwestern Ontar-io Associated Chambers of Com-merce fall meeting here.

As residents of NorthwesternOntario, all of us have grown upwith the forest products industrybeing a major presence in our life,Harrison noted. If it wasnt ourdirect employer or the employer ofour parents, chances are that some-one in our extended family workedin the mill or in the bush. . . .

But in the course of just onegeneration, that pictures beendrastically altered, he said.

Across Northwestern Ontario,from Marathon to Kenora, pulpmills, kraft mills, paper mills, andsawmills either have closed en-tirely or have idled lines.

Just 30 years ago, there weremore than 20 paper machines inoperation and five pulp mills inthe region. Today, that number has been reduced to three paper ma-

chines and three pulp millswiththe lumber side of the businesslooking even bleaker.

Harrison said the decline can beattributed to a decreasing marketdemand and loss of competitiveposition in the last 10-15 years.

The four key components thatmake up the roughly 80 percentof the cost of delivering productsto customers are fibre, fuel, folks,and freight.

Harrison explained that advanc-

es made over the years in pulpingtechnologies have taken away theregions position as the finest fibrebasket in the world.

The quality of the slow-growingfine fibre in the north has beenovercome by the application ofnew technologies to fast-growingspecies in the southern U.S. andSouth America, opening up a newregion of pulp and paper-makingwhere costs are roughly half ofwhat they are in Northwestern

Ontario.The south has warmer climates

and shorter regeneration cycles,lower transportation costs to getthe wood to the mills, and can doyear-round operations.

Fuel, including electricity andthermal energy (steam), is anotherfactor. The latter is made by burn-ing natural gas or biomass.

The increased price of naturalgas from $3/gigajoule to

Over $2 million in renovations have been done at RainycrestLong-Term Care in the past year, including the rebuilding ofseveral courtyards for residents. This courtyard, located justoff the special needs unit at Rainycrest, is a beautiful example

of what the newly-renovated courtyards at the long-term carefacility could look like once theyre ready. The flowers and fur-nishings were donated by families and friends of residents. Seestory, photos A3. Duane Hicks photo

Garden of serenity

J.W. Walker students helped fill up a bagwith garbage during the TD Great CanadianShoreline Cleanup held here last week. Thetop five things picked up this year were 988cigarette butts, 453 food wrappers, 233

plastic bags, 184 paper bags, and 98 capsand lids. Some of the more interesting findsincluded a wallet, a $5 bill, giant bolts, carpet,and duct tape.

Heather Latter photo

Cleaning shoreline

Forest industry needs support to survive: Harrison

Please see Forestry, A11

Please see Town, A10

Townrelaxing

fencebylaw

Please see Talks, A10

Please see Couchiching, A11

Couchiching

families stillawait action oncontamination

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More from A1

$14/gigajoule prompted the FortFrances mill to build the biomass boiler. While that price has sincedipped to $4/gigajoule, no oneexpects it to stay that low forever,noted Harrison.

But the higher cost is on the power side of the equation, hecontinued, saying the only otherAbitibiBowater mill in a jurisdic-tion with higher electricity coststhan Ontario is one in the U.S. thathas been idled since last year.

Harrison said a paper mill con-sumes between two and threemegawatt hours for every time

paper is produced, meaning a $10/megawatt difference in pricingcould have an impact of as muchas $10 million a year to a largemill.

The spread between the highestand lowest electricity costs compet-ing paper mills are paying is about$30/megawattor about a $30million impact.

As for folks (or labour), Harri-son said the company has workedto improve productivity over the years, with machine speed-ups, ef-ficiency improvements, flexibilityagreements, and manning reduc-tions.

And while the mill has managedto move the bar from four man hours per ton to 2.5 man hoursper ton, thats still a far cry fromthe 1.5 man hours a ton that canbe achieved in more recent vintagemills where they have larger scalesize.

As well, most mills in Northwest-ern Ontario have a legacy of labouragreements and benefit plans thatare radically different from thosewith whom we compete, Harrisonsaid.

And as for freight, Harrison saidthat in the pulp and paper busi-ness, the company pays for every-thing that comes into and out oftheir operations. Thirty years ago,that wasnt such a big deal for aNorthwestern Ontario paper mill ifthe biggest concentration of com-mercial printers existed in the U.S.Midwest.

But over the last 30 years, these printers have moved their opera-tions to the southwest and south-eastern U.S.doubling the logistic

footprint of a mill like Fort Fran-ces and more than doubling thecost of shipping as the cost of fuelhas gone up, too.

Other factors hurting the for-est industry include the decliningdemand for newsprint, which Har-rison said is down 30 percent fromlast year, but has been steadilydropping for the past nine years inNorth America.

Harrison outlined what it willtake to survive in a forest-basedeconomy, noting that first and fore-most is the industry needs to havea reliable future source of fibreresources.

He added the Ontario forest ten-ure system is under review by thegovernment and probably is goingto change.

But its not the governmentsintent to give up rights to allocatefibre to mills and current Sustain-able Forest Licence holders likeAbitibiBowater is supporting thereview with the understanding thatit will deliver what is promisedacompetitive long-term supply atan affordable cost without morebureaucracy or restrictions on whatthe companies can do.

At the same time, there areserious concerns about the Endan-gered Species Act.

Our current management prac-tices take wildlife requirementsvery seriously, and we support pro-tecting endangered species basedupon the best available sciences,Harrison said.

Were quite proud of the envi-

ronmental record we have and thework we have done in the past withthe Ministry of Natural Resourcesto provide for endangered specieswithin the current framework ofthe forest management planningprocess.

But we view the new legislationas opening up the door for frivo-lous legal challenges that are sim- ply going to add cost and burdento business . . . , he warned.

Another threat is power pric-ing. The region has an abundanceof electricity, but the governmentrefuses to put region-appropriatepricing in place.

Regional mills pay the same asthose in southern Ontario eventhough theres excess, low-cost

power available.They also pay for uplifts for

transmission, peak setting, OntarioHydro debt, and global adjust-ment.

Harrison stressed there needsto be a firmly-established rate forNorthwestern Ontario, adding thatan all in price for power at $45/megawatt hour would take theuncertainty out of making businessdecisions and make mills competi-tive.

Looking to the future, Harrisonsaid while there is potential forthe development of forest bioprod-ucts, like biodiesel, bioethanol, bio-

chemicals, and electricity genera-tion from burning wood resources,these are in the developmentalstages and have a long ways to go.

He said that since the raw mate-rials needed for these new bioprod-ucts are byproducts of the existing, primary forest industry, and with-out the infrastructure (i.e., forestmanagement, road system, harvest-ing operations, support services) in place, its doubtful the emergingbioeconomy will develop.

I dont think we can afford tocut off our future potential as aforest products region by failing tosupport our primary industry sothat these secondary industries cangrow up around us, he remarked.

Theres a potential for us in thefuture, but were not going to get tothe future if we dont have what wehave today and these key mills goaway, he argued.

I know the picture I paint is

not a cheery one, but its not acheery business these days, Har-rison admitted. The reality is weregoing through structural change inour industry. The demand for our products is lessened, input cost pressures have marginalized a lotof mills in the region.

There are, however, mills leftin the region that if properly sup-ported by the owners, by the com-munities, by government, can beviable going forward, he stressed.

If we can keep the nucleus ofthese integrated mills in place, andwe have the infrastructure in place,they will go off and pursue a neweconomy of the forest for the fu-ture.

Forest industry needs support: HarrisonMore from A1

as a dry kiln for using an unknownchemical to treat wood, a latheand lumber storage yards, an as-phalt plant, and more.

[INAC is] responsible as far aswere concerned, from our end,said Amanda Jourdains husband,Shawn. Because when the landwas issued to the mill sites, it wassupposed to be restored back toits original state and it wasnt.

And we never chose to live oncontaminated soilit was just thatwe ended up building there.

Its frustrating, he admitted. Imean, were paying for a home wecant live in, that well never beable to live in.

But while further testing is beingdone, one part of the delay hascome from Health Canada itself,said McPherson.

Theyre basically saying, Wedont have enough on paper, yourenot sick, we cant prove youre sickyet. Well, yeah, because you havemy papers, she noted, pointingto how residents still are waitingto hear the results of blood teststhat were taken more than threemonths ago.

If the residents are being af-fected by the contaminants, it willshow up like a fingerprint intheir bloodwork, McPherson ex-plained.

When questioned about the bloodwork results, Dr. ThomasDignan, regional community medi-cine specialist with Health Canada,Thunder Bay zone, stated that:

The results are being processedin Ottawa at the government labsand they have many other thingsto be concerned about at this par-ticular time and they will forwardthem to me as soon as theyredone.

But to McPherson, its not ac-ceptable the testing has taken thislong.

Thats three months, and whatwere there10, 15 of us tested?she remarked. Dont you thinkyou want a little rush on this?

Thats ridiculous when youredealing with people.

Even if these blood tests comeback as clear, residents will requireeven more tests for the six newly-identified chemicals, she noted.

Meanwhile, Health Canada iswaiting for the second report fromDST on the six chemicals beforeproceeding, said Dr. Dignan.

This new testing is being done

because DST went back to dif-ferent parts of the area and havecome up with other solvents thatwere used in the wood treatmentplant, he noted, adding that untilthe test results for these six newchemicals are in, Health Canadacannot say definitively that thereis no risk.

But Dr. Dignan stressed theinitial results from DST whichHealth Canada received and re-viewed indicated there was no

need for people to be removedfrom their housessomething theDST consultants agreed withandit was safe for both the Jourdainsand McPhersons to return to theirhomes once they were cleaned.

The only way residents wouldbe at risk is if they were to comein contact with the soil througheating it or rolling around in it,Dr. Dignan said, and as far as hisknowledge, the areas of concernhad been fenced off.

Health Canada and Indian Af-fairs has been more than openwith the community, and sharedeverything with them that weknow, Dr. Dignan stressed.

Its frustrating from my per-spective because Im a First Na-tions physician and my concernis the community, and Ive alwaysexpressed that to the community, but theyre sometimes confusingpolitical issues with health issues.

But this response from HealthCanada isnt good enough for theJourdains, who say they wont bemoving back to their home.

They say that, they say that you can move in, said Amanda Jourdain, Well, if we can moveback in, then how come the areacan be chain linked off and be anunacceptable human health risk?

Because they dont really knowwhat actually happens, and it af-fects reproductive toxicology,which means it affects the kids,and their kids, like it builds up intheir system, she charged.

And that is just the chemicals

that theyve tested for so far, andthat is why theyre testing for thesesix new ones.

If officials say the site is safe,then they can move their kids inthere, Jourdain added.

Were supposed to live here,were supposed to swim here, saidMcPherson, noting the health risks(eating or rolling around in soil)means they cant garden or growtheir own vegetables, and thatfamily pets are at risk.

And to date, there has been nocleaning of the homes to get ridof any indoor contamination, sheadded, and nothing has been doneto start the remediation of soilwhich has been fenced off in bothof their yards.

In fact, McPherson has takento putting a sprinkler on both her and the Jourdains fenced-offlawns to keep the dust downamove she opted for so that DST

wouldnt have to drive in fromThunder Bay three days a week tomanage the dust.

For McPherson, the delays andexcuses from government feelslike officials wont take action untilafter someone gets sick enough.

How long do we let them dragon for now? We gave them a breakfor a bit, because we thoughtmaybe something was going to happen, and absolutely nothinghas, she charged, calling the lack

of action a liability issue.Basically, we have to get sick,

and once we are, are you goingto ship us some body bags be-cause we live on a reservation?McPherson wondered, referring tothe recent move by Health Canadato send body bags alongside otherhealth supplies to remote reservesin Manitoba when the communi-ties had requested help in fightingagainst the H1N1 flu virus.

Is that what were going get?Are you just going to send us somebody bags so we can slap our kidsin there?

And with the contaminated arealocated on the lakefront, the is-sue stretches beyond Couchiching,both McPherson and the Jourdainsstressed, adding theyre hopingto see support from other arearesidents and the Town of FortFrances.

Its ground level and everythingfrom our house and north of usgoes directly into our lakefront, soits got to be in the water as far asIm concerned, said Shawn Jour-dain.

This is in Rainy Lake, McPher-son said. We might be on the rez,but this is everyones lake.

So why isnt that important?Why isnt the town doing anythingabout it?

Its already been proven thatthis is in the lake, she continued,pointing out that considering howbig fishing is in the area, the possi-ble effects of contamination on thefish populationwhich ultimately

are ending up on peoples dinner platesshould be of concern toeveryone.

The Jourdains remain hopefulfor the outcome, noting theyveseen improvements with the local project team of officials workingon the problem.

Our project teamtheyre do-ing a great job, said AmandaJourdain. It is the higher-ups thathave to give them the okays that have been absolutely useless sofar.

While previous meetings withofficials had left them feeling ig-nored, Shawn Jourdain said at themost recent meeting, held Sept. 21,they were given more answers.

Hopefully, things are going tomove in a positive direction, hesaid. We all kind of left there witha better feeling than we did lasttime.

[But] theyre talking years,

Jourdain said of the timeline. Ourfamilyand I think I speak formost of the familieswould liketo get on with our lives and notspend three or 10 years figuringout what it could be, or what couldgo wrong.

Get us out, move us out, and be done with it, he stressed. Itwould be the right thing to do, andthats one thing they have to real-ize.

Couchiching families still await action