Forest boss hesitant about road aid

NEWLY-NAMED forests minister Pat Bell isn’t quite ready to commit himself to continue a specific plan by his predecessor to help a struggling northwest forest industry.

But Bell said he’s more than willing to look at Rich Coleman’s proposal to spend millions on maintaining logging roads so smaller companies can get to their cutting areas.

Speaking here in May, just before being moved out from his forests minister post as part of a cabinet shuffle, Coleman said he had asked his cabinet colleagues for $10 million.

“Cabinet wouldn’t give me that and sent me back to do some more work,” said Coleman at the time.

Last year, Coleman secured $4 million to be spread out over three years for northwestern silviculture projects.

Coleman had been responding to calls from companies and local governments for help ever since once dominant Skeena Cellulose disappeared from the northwest forest sector.

The geographic size of its holdings, which included the massive Tree Farm Licence No. 1, also made Skeena Cellulose the primary logging road maintainer in the northwest.

But when Skeena Cellulose shut down in 2001 and slid into bankruptcy, there’s been virtually no consistent maintainer of logging roads and bridges since.

And that’s made it difficult to get access to wood that can be cut, particularly for small operators.

Bell said he was familiar with Coleman’s proposal but wants to delve into it himself before making any commitments.

“I don’t know what the number is,” said Bell in cost estimates. “But I do know we’re going to need some help.”

“He’s done a lot of the groundwork, and has positioned things quite well to move quickly,” Bell added of the Coleman plan.

The point’s been driven home through lobbying by industry groups and the City of Terrace and by two forestry reports written on behalf of the city.

Also making the point is the Northwest Loggers Association which has written its own brief making the case for road and bridge maintenance.

That brief has been presented to Coleman and association officials will be talking about it again when Bell visits the area.

That visit could be within three weeks, said Bell in adding he’s looking forward to meeting with his employees and those involved in the forest industry.

What Bell says he really wants to do is explore a wide range of forestry options up to and including building wood-fired plants that would generate electricity and plants to turn wood into ethanol.

“Some of the proposals could see them using up to a million cubic metres a year of wood,” said Bell of electricity generation plans.

Skeena Cellulose’s Tree Farm Licence No. 1 called for 720,000 cubic metres of logging in the late 1990s.

“You know, there’s a whole new variety of products ... synthetic gas ... ethanol,” Bell said.

“The technology is there oil at $150 [a barrel] and headed for $200. That’s attractive.”

Bell is also the MLA from Prince George North and was agriculture minister before the June cabinet shuffle put him into the forests portfolio.

“I’m very excited to be in this portfolio,” Bell noted in saying that there are five pulp mills and six sawmills in his riding.

Not all of them are working, however, because of the industry downturn now affecting Prince George and other woods industry towns.