Prince George Citizen January 26, 2019 by Prince George Citizen

Saturday, January 26, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

High tech Adam Hughes, left, ConMed Distributor for the Province of B.C., works with orthopedic surgeons Dr. Michael Moran and Dr. Paul van Zyl using one of four new Orthopedic Video Operating Room Towers that have arrived at UHNBC. The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation funded the purchase through The Copper Falls Project, which wrapped up in November and through public support of the Festival of Trees 2018.

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Gas utility company FortisBC is looking to use methane gas collected at the Foothills landfill to meet the provincial requirement for renewable fuel.

FortisBC eyeing Foothills landfill gas Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca The Foothills landfill could become a source of fuel for FortisBC. The natural gas provider is working to reach a provincially-mandated goal of securing 15 per cent of its supply from renewable sources by 2030, Doug Stout, the company’s vice president of market development and external relations, said this week. The landfill’s methane gas could become one of those sources, Stout said, although he later said tapping into that source will be at least a couple of years

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away if all works out. “It’s in early stages right now of development,” he said and added similar efforts are up and running in Salmon Arm and Kelowna. The Fraser-Fort George Regional District is in discussions with FortisBC on the possibility, FFGRD spokeswoman Renee McCloskey confirmed, “but at this point that’s all that it is... further information will be coming out through our board.” Methane gas at the landfill is currently flared off and how to make better use of it has been an ongoing question at the FFGRD. Using it to heat greenhouses was considered at one point but the venture

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fell through. FFGRD board of directors chair Art Kaehn expressed some optimism regarding the FortisBC proposal. “We’ve looked at a number of things to get some beneficial use out of the landfill gas and this seems promising,” he said. “We’re burning it off right now and we’d like to stop doing that.” Stout raised one other possibility when addressing city council on Monday night – harnessing wind power to make hydrogen. Common in Europe, wind-power turbines are used to generate the electricity needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

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Coastal GasLink stops work on pipeline Citizen news service HOUSTON — A company building a pipeline has stopped work on the project in northwestern British Columbia where 14 people were arrested earlier this month. Coastal GasLink said in a notice posted on its website on Thursday that it stopped work in an area south of Houston because traps had been placed inside construction boundaries and people were entering the site, raising safety concerns. The company said it is working with the RCMP to address the issue. Earlier this week, the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation alleged on social media that pipeline contractors had driven a bulldozer through the heart of one of their traplines south of Houston, which they say violates the Wildlife Act by interfering with lawful trapping. The company said its work in the area has been fully approved and permitted, and it reminded the public that unauthorized access to an active construction site where heavy equipment is being used can be dangerous. The pipeline will run through Wet’suwet’en territory to LNG Canada’s $40-billion export facility in Kitimat. Opponents say Coastal GasLink has no authority to build without consent from Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. The company said it has signed agreements with the elected councils of all 20 First Nations along the route, including some Wet’suwet’en elected council members Those council members say they are independent from the hereditary chief’s authority and inked deals to bring better education, elder care and services to their members. Hereditary chiefs say they have authority over 22,000 square kilometres of Wet’suwet’en traditional territory while elected band members administer the reserves.

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