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S TANDARD TERRACE

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$1.24 PLUS 6¢ GST

VOL. 26 NO. 25

www.terracestandard.com

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Natural gas rates drop

josh massey PHOTO

boats gather at river’s edge to take searchers to area where two mushroom pickers are missing.

Huge search mounted By JOSH MASSEY THE LARGEST search and rescue operation undertaken in the area in decades took place over the weekend with more than 100 volunteers showing up to help experts find two lost men. Ike Murray, 26, and Michael Devlin Sabo, 32, who did not return to an agreed upon meeting point in the Lorne Creek area on the north side of the Skeena River Sunday afternoon, Sept. 22. No emergency fires or other signals had been spotted all last week as searching efforts intensified daily. The area the lost men were traversing was bordered by natural boundaries, so volunteers were told to keep in mind that the men might be injured and hidden from easy view. “We are looking for someone lying down or covered up,” said Terrace Search and Rescue’s Dave Jephson, speaking to volunteers in an early morning briefing Sept. 28. In rainy weather described by one volunteer as “wet and miserable,” teams of 7-10 volunteers with a leader assigned to each combed various pre-mapped locations on the north side of the Skeena, 53

kilometres east of Terrace. “At this point they could be hypothermic and too cold to call out for help,” said crew leader Wendy Harder, who was one of several emergency response experts flown in from Vancouver and Kamloops to reinforce the search efforts Sept. 27. Vehicles which shuttled volunteers from Terrace Search and Rescue headquarters on Greig Ave. were parked in a long line down Hwy 16 near the mission’s marshalling site at Princess Lake on property owned by Louise and Hugh Ormerod. From there the groups boarded boats that ferried them across the Skeena to their search areas between Lorne Creek and Fiddler Creek. Swift water rescue crews hiked up the sides of the creeks, sometimes crossing over to check the other side, though with difficulty, with one crew member noting that Lorne Creek had dangerous banks and fast flowing water. There were also reports earlier last week of a mother bear spotted nearby, though by the weekend it had moved out of the area. According to volunteer Dave Mason, the size of the area where the missing pickers had been searching at the time of

their disappearance was daunting. “We had a few dozen volunteers and some big country,” Mason said. “You Google Earth it and it’s just a tiny little part you covered.” Searching began at daylight Sept. 23, and the numbers of volunteers, including friends and family members of the missing men, expanded each day, with 40 volunteers coming out Sept. 26 and 50 on Sept. 27. With the influx of twice that on Saturday, Sept. 28, the challenge became how to organize the huge group safely and efficiently. Crews with the most experience were dispatched first and it took most of the morning to get everyone across. “I just feel that the more people the better and if it was my children I would sure like the help,” said volunteer Christine Malaka that morning. And 20 members of the local Canadian Rangers patrol, volunteers who are part of the Canadian Armed Forces, were charged with searching the perimeter of the grid. Volunteer Michael Bruce said that the searching the woods was challenging in the lower areas because of fallen trees, but that the higher area further up the hill from the waterfront was easier.

NORTHWEST natural gas users are now benefitting from lower rates thanks to a continuing glut of the fuel in North America. Pacific Northern Gas (PNG) dropped the rate it charges for gas as of Oct. 1 as well as the rate it charges to deliver the product. The combined commodity and delivery residential charge is now $14.464 a gigagjoule (GJ), a drop of nearly 10 per cent from the previous combined charge of $16.035 a GJ. The new residential rate applies to the area from Vanderhoof to the coast. There are also price reductions for small commercial customers of PNG. A drop in the price of the gas itself amounting to just over 82 cents a GJ makes up more than half of the overall decrease. But nearly 75 cents a GJ of the combined drop comes from a decision by its regulator, the BC Utilities Commission, to roll back what Pacific Northern Gas is allowed to charge customers to deliver the commodity. The gas utility was permitted an interim rate increase as of Jan. 1 while the utilities commission studied its request for a permanent increase. The roll back applies to the delivery rate from Jan. 1 onward and means Pacific Northern Gas customers will get a credit on their bills between now and the end of October. Pacific Northern Gas official Janet Kennedy said the new delivery charge as of Oct. 1 means a savings to the average residential customer of $18.41 for the last three months of the year. “Based on the expected average consumption of a residential customer of 22.8 GJs for the last quarter of 2013, [the new commodity rate] would result in a decrease in commodity charges of approximately $17 on average per residential customer,” she added. Kennedy also said the new delivery rate as of Oct. 1 is still considered an interim one by the utilities commission and that it continues to study information leading to a permanent rate. “A decision on this proceeding is expected in the first or second quarter of 2014,” she said. By that time, PNG is also expected to have filed information leading to its request for a 2014 delivery rate. PNG passes along the amount it pays for gas from suppliers to its customers. It’s not permitted to any charge to what it pays. Depending upon the price of natural gas being purchased by PNG, the utility applies quarterly to the utilities commission for rate adjustments. On Jan. 1 of this year, for example, the commodity rate being charged by PNG was $3.375 a GJ, less than the rate is now. The new combined rate of $14.464 a GJ does not include PNG’s basic charge applied to customers nor a series of taxes. The provincial Liberal carbon tax alone amounts to an extra $1.49 a GJ. In addition to northwestern B.C., PNG delivers natural gas in the northeastern area of B.C. and propane in the Granisle area.