Northern BC Environmental Groups develop website for LNG conversation

With the ever changing dynamic of the proposed LNG developments for the North Coast, the flow of information seems to be coming at us at a rapid pace of late.

Whether it's the Major LNG proponents such as Petronas, BG Group, CNOOC/Nexen or the latest to the party Woodside, websites are popping up and offices are opening their doors in the quest to put forward the message of LNG development.

As well, the Provincial Government seems to provide for a daily update on some development or another revolving around the Premier's LNG strategy and the ambitious nature of how the Province sees that development evolving.

Now we can add one more portal to our bookmarks that of BC LNG INFO, a website that has been designed by a collective of environmental groups to deliver their thoughts on the rush to development and the impact that they believe the many projects that have been announced may have on the Northwest.

 “Residents are overwhelmed by the pace and scale of LNG development. The information we’re getting from industry and government is limited and hard to access. This website is a hub for people in the north who are grappling with what LNG means for us and our communities,”  Nadia Nowak, Northern LNG Facilitator, Northwest Institute

The groups that have come together to launch the website are the Northwest Institute and Skeena Wild Conservation Trust,  along with the Headwaters Initiative, the group describes their work as seeking to "provide information that will help northerners understand the influx of proposed gas expansion in BC and what the industry means for our communities"

From their portal their information flow will provide for thoughts on tracking, background on the routes of the projects and some reviews of the Premier's LNG figures and calculations.

They also provide for a news ticker of items on LNG development as well as a listing of events scheduled for the future.

Among their notes, a reminder of the upcoming Let's Talk LNG sessions with NDP MP Nathan Cullen, with a session planned for Smithers on February 19th and Prince Rupert hosting a session of the tour on February 20th.

One of their first in house items is a look at what impact development might have on communities of the Northwest. Particularly when it comes to an expected rapid pace of development and with it the social problems that could be part of such development, you can explore that theme further from the article titled Fort McTerrace?

The goal of the website as it's explained in the introduction, is to start a conversation on the theme of LNG development in the region.

Readers are invited to participate in that dialogue, by leaving a comment or submitting their own blog post to the project.

You can learn more about their BCLNG INFO project from their website.

For more on the topic of LNG Development the blog features a comprehensive review of developments both on the North Coast and in the Kitimat region, you can review our items from our archive pages.

Rampage take semi final lead with thriller at the Jim

The prospects of a playoff run for the Prince Rupert Rampage took a giant stride forward on Saturday night, as the Rampage scored a last minute goal in the third period to claim a 3-2 victory in the first game of their best of three CIHL Semi Final series with the Terrace River Kings.

The Rampage held their own in a fast paced and physical match up with the River Kings, one which thoroughly thrilled the 800 plus in attendance at a raucous Jim Ciccone Civic Centre.

The crowd was in full throttle through the first as the Rampage took the lead at 12:42 with a Jordan Weir marker, with assists going to Devin Palmer and Greg Sheppard. Weir's goal would be the only one to register on the scoreboard in period one and would carry the Rampage on into the second period.

In the middle frame, the River Kings brought the game even at the 5:36 mark, providing for the only scoring play of a very physical second period, one which saw 12 penalties called, the majority for roughing, or boarding. The physical play would provide for tone for the remainder of the game and set the scene for one of the more thrilling of third periods seen at the Jim this season. 

The third period got off to a fast start for the Rampage, as the home side picked up their second goal of the night at the 2:54 mark, with Jeff Coolin picking up the goal, with assists going to Devin Palmer and Marcus Atchison.

The lead would hold through until the 13:30 point, when Terrace once gain tied the game up, a power play marker that served to bring a bit of quiet to the madhouse for a few moments, before the home crowd once again reminded the Terrace visitors that this was a road game.

More rough play in the third, which included misconducts and an ejection for the River Kings put the Rampage onto the power play for the final few minutes of the third and that, along with the energy of the crowd at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre translated into a winning goal for the Prince Rupert side.

Devin Palmer collected his third point of the night at 19:15 of the third, as timely a goal as a Rampage fan could hope for,  as he put the the power play marker behind Garret Muir in the Terrace nets, Travis Helland and Josh Kierce picked up the assists on what would be the game winning goal.

The game one stats package provided a review for the 3 goals on 23 Rampage shots on the Terrace nets, while Warren Hansen turned in a stellar performance, turning aside all but two of the 33 shots directed his way on the night.

The officiating crew had a busy night, with the River Kings assessed some 34 minutes of penalty time on 14 infractions, while the Rampage served 22 minutes on 11 infractions.

With the buzzer bringing an end to the night's action, the Rampage suddenly found themselves in the driver's seat in the CIHL West semi-final showdown.  Holding claim to a 1 game to 0 lead in their best of three series, with games two and three destined for Terrace next weekend.

The task ahead is still a large one, but with a solid Saturday night performance behind them the Rampage will be heading off to Terrace with a renewed sense of confidence. No doubt hoping to move on to the next round with a Saturday victory, but aware that with their Game One win they now have two chances if required, to put away their divisional rival.

Other CIHL results this weekend saw the Williams Lake Stampeders take a 1 game to 0 lead over the Lac La Heche Tomahawks on the strength of a 5-4 Saturday night victory.

The Houston Luckies topped the Quesnel Kangaroos 4-3, taking a 1 game to 0 lead in their series.

While the Smithers Steelheads knocked off the Kitimat Ice Demons 6-4 also taking a 1 game to 0 lead in their series.

You can find more items on the Rampage Playoff series and other CIHL notes from our Schedule/Results page and from our CIHL News archive.

Blog watching, week ending January 26

As part of a weekly feature on the blog, every Sunday we offer up this weeks recap of the top five items viewed over the course of the last seven days.

Included in the countdown, we will provide links to the articles in question, offering up with one click of the mouse, those items of the week that you may have missed.

This week, road conditions and vehicle incidents dominated the bulk of our viewership totals. Also of note for the week, the move by the city to return to the controversial Alternate Approval Process, this time for its Boundary Expansion plan proved of interest.

To wrap up our review of the week, readers found our item on a new navigational aid for Prince Rupert harbour and word of the closing of a transportation company on the North Coast must read items to complete the top five items of the week.

The top item of the week:

One fatality in Highway 16 vehicle incident...   Our item on a three vehicle incident east of New Hazelton proved to be a topic which attracted much interest in the short period of time it has been posted  (posted January 25, 2014)

That item was followed by:

Rock slide on Highway 16 west of Terrace reduces traffic to one lane...   Interest in items regarding highway conditions resonated through the week with our item on a rock slide west of Terrace holding down the second spot on the five most viewed items ( posted January 22, 2014 )

City to launch Alternate Approval Process for boundary Expansion plan...  The move of the City of Prince Rupert to make use of the controversial Alternate Approval Process once again attracted a number of viewers since it appeared on Friday (posted January 24, 2014)

New aid to Navigation to provide even safer transit of Prince Rupert Harbour... A new safety enhancement to the approach of Prince Rupert harbour proved to be a popular item for review this week (posted January 20, 2014)

Canadian Freightways to cease operations from Prince George west to Prince Rupert,  Our item first reported last weekend on the closure of Canadian Freightways offices across Northern BC continued to attract a large volume of interested readers (posted January 18, 2014)

You can find our Blog watching featured posted every Sunday morning by 9AM, a handy way to catch up to the week that was, at a leisurely weekend pace.

The Permanent link to the feature can be found above our Blog Archive section, found on the right hand side of the title page.

For those looking for updates to items as they are posted to the blog, don't forget about our email alert access.

A daily review of the latest items on the blog can be delivered to your email in box, simply by entering your email address into the information bar, items posted to the blog will be delivered to your e-mail account each day.

You can find the link to that feature on the upper, right hand side of the blog.

Northern Adventure returns from refit, Northern Expedition heads in for one

Starting today, BC Ferries has swapped out vessels for the Northern Routes, with the Northern Adventure returning to service on both the Haida Gwaii and Port Hardy runs.

With the arrival of Northern Adventure from its annual refit program, the Northern Expedition now sets sail for its own bit of R and R, the anticipated return to full strength of the vessels of the Northern Fleet is expected to be sometime in the Spring.

At that time the Northern Expedition will return to service, designated for use on the Port Hardy to Prince Rupert run, while the Northern Adventure will return to its usual duties of transit between Haida Gwaii and Prince Rupert.

You can review some background on the announcement from this media release from BC Ferries.

We have more items of note on BC Ferries service and issues on Ferry Transportation on the North Coast and Haida Gwaii available on our archive page.

One fatality in Highway 16 vehicle incident, highway remains CLOSED east of New Hazelton

Update: Drive BC advised that the Highway had been reopened to traffic shortly before 8 PM

A three vehicle collision east of New Hazelton this morning has resulted in a fatality and required the closure of the highway for further investigation.

Media outlets in Prince George are reporting that one person died as a result of the incident. The accident took place shortly after 9 AM near Mug Flat Creek, which is 15 kilometres east of New Hazelton.

As part of the investigation into the incident, the RCMP have closed the highway to travel in both directions, no alternate route is available in the region.

Drive BC advises no timeline has been provided yet, as to when the route will be reopened to traffic.

You can find more details on the status of the highway from the Drive BC website or twitter feed.


CKPG TV-- New Hazelton Crash claims life of 70 year old woman (video)
CFTK-- Weekend Crash Near New Hazelton Kills One Person
CFTK-- Hazelton Fatal Crash (video)
Prince George Citizen-- Fatal crash near New Hazelton
Terrace Standard-- Highway 16 claims another life in three-vehicle crash
Opinion 250-- Fatal Crash closes Hwy 16 near New Hazelton
HQBulkley Valley-- One dead in three car collision on Highway 16

Rampage ready to skate into second season

With a two week break to regroup and work on their strategy, the Prince Rupert Rampage take to the ice tonight, launching the start of the best of three CIHL West Division Semi Final.

Coming into town to try and sidetrack the playoff run aspirations of the home side, will be the Terrace River Kings.  First place finishers for the regular season in the West with a record of 12 and 5 with one Overtime loss.

A twenty five point season that put them ten ahead of the Rampage, a fair share of those points gained from the Prince Rupert squad.

The Rampage had an inconsistent year through 2013 and into January of 2014, stretches of success on the ice, balanced off by frustrating periods, where the team couldn't find the net with much frequency and suffered occasional defensive lapses that quickly put the team into far too many comeback attempts.

Their record of 59 goals for and 79 against provides the backdrop of a year of learning for squad made up of many newcomers to the Rampage lineup. On ice lapses at times proving critical as the team worked its way through the fall and winter of the CIHL regular season.

For playoff success against Terrace, the Rampage will be looking to a trio of scoring leaders in their lineup to recapture some of their scoring form.  Kory Movald, Jared Meers and Craig Munro accounted for 41 points on the season for the Rampage and for the Rampage to find success they will need points from their leading scorers.

Through the season, Jordan Weir and Brock Ward were nipping at the heels of the team leaders in the race for the top five scoring for 2013-14, for the Rampage to extend their ice time deep into February of 2014, they will need that duo, as well as all hands on deck to set the tone for the showdown with Terrace.

The River Kings bring an offensive unit that can explode on the scoreboard, having collected 97 goals in the 18 game regular season, including a memorable outburst against the Rampage in December, with a 10-1 victory, a game which brought a fairly impressive 4 game Rampage winning streak to an end.

For the most part however, the remaining three match ups of the four between the River Kings and Prince Rupert this year have been much closer.

From the season opening win in Terrace of October, the match ups between the two teams  have been hard hitting and high tempo affairs, games that are are most likely to be settled by a timely goal, with this year the majority of those timely goals going the way of the River Kings.

The playoffs though, as they say are a whole new season and particularly a short playoff semi-final series such as the CIHL's schedule calls for.

Should Prince Rupert snare the win tonight at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre, they automatically put themselves into the drivers seat and add a bit of pressure to the Terrace team.

Forcing the River Kings to then have to put together a pair of back to back wins on their own ice to answer the challenge of their coastal cousins of the CIHL west.

Momentum will come from a game one victory for one of the two tonight, the Rampage hope that by the time Game one has come to an end, it's the River Kings that will be looking to regroup for the final two games.

Puck drop is 8 PM at the Jim, Tickets go on sale at the door at 7 PM

Games two and three (if necessary) take place in Terrace next weekend.

You can review our previous Rampage items from our archive page here.

The full schedule of CIHL playoff action this weekend and next can be found from the CIHL website.

City to launch Alternative Approval Process for Boundary Expansion plan

There was no discussion on the process at the most recent public session of City Council.

But a short notice on the City's website, advises Rupertites that if they have any objections to the city's proposed Boundary expansion plan, they will need to make use of the Alternate Approval process to express them.

The Boundary Expansion project which was first outlined in March of 2013, was once a wide ranging proposal that looked in many directions for potential expansion of the city's boundaries.

Much of that proposed plan (see here) was put on the back burner, as the neighbours weighed in with concerns over the expansionist eye that the City was casting.

There is however, one portion of the expansion plan that has continued forward, that to bring lands that contain the city's watershed under the control of the city and within its boundaries.

For this round of the Boundary Expansion process, the City is turning once again to the controversial Alternative Approval Process, posting details of the proposal to the City website this week.

The process is designed to move forward an initiative, which if successful would do so without the requirement of having to take it to a referendum process.

Something the City of Prince Rupert seems to find useful, as this would be the second time in three months that the City has used the process to move forward a proposed initiative.

From the website this description of the process outlines the key aspects of the one month countdown for the Boundary Expansion proposal.

The municipality may proceed with the Boundary Extension request unless at least ten percent of municipal electors indicate that a referendum must be held by submitting a signed Elector Response Form to Prince Rupert City Hall no later than 4:30 p. m.  on February 24, 2014.  Elector Response forms must be in the form established by the City of Prince Rupert, and only those persons who qualify as electors of the municipality are entitled to sign Elector Response forms.

The elector response forms are available from City Hall at 424 3rd Avenue West, between 9:30 AM and 4:30 PM Monday through Friday.

The Boundary extension request will be deemed to have the approval of electors, should less than 10 percent of municipal electors submit an Elector Response Form.  The number of votes required to prevent council from moving forward with their Extension plans would be 903 votes.

At which point the city could consider taking the project to a referendum, or we imagine decide to set it aside for the moment.

The controversial process was last used by the City in regard to the Airport Loan approval, which at the time raised the ire of two of the City's councillors.

During the discussion on that approach, both Councillor Ashley and Councillor Thorkelson expressed their concerns over what they believed was a less than democratic method of seeking approval.

You can review some of their contributions to the theme from our archive pages here.

Beyond the brief notice on the city's website, the city also took out the first of what are to be two advertisements in the weekly newspaper, which at the moment seems to be the only format of discussion on the topic, all be it rather one sided and lacking for debate or review.

If the Airport Loan process is any indication, few voters will bother to take the time to head down to city hall to express an opinion and for the most part, we imagine there aren't many who have a problem with the city taking charge of its watershed lands.

However, considering their previous alarm over the use of the Alternative Approval Process on the Airport Loan issue, one wonders if before the February 24th deadline arrives, the city's councillors may wish to bring the topic up for discussion once again in public forum.

Providing some background for the public as to why the City believes this is the best process to move projects forward and more importantly, how the City decides which projects require this approach and how often the City plans to use the Alternative Approval Process.

Notice to Electors on Alternative Approval Process
Elector Response Form

You can learn more about past items of interest on City Hall developments from our Civic politics archives.

Council Session Reviews
Discussion points for Council