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Thursday, June 13, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Playing in the mud Students from Nukko Lake Elementary make their way through the mud pit during the Little Mudder Challenge at Otway Nordic Centre on Wednesday. Participants were put to the test on a 5.7-kilometre obstacle course that included climbing walls, balance beams and tests of strength and endurance like a tire pull and a medicine ball carry.

Blockaders put pipeline Victim of fatal rollover behind schedule, court told Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca The Coastal GasLink pipeline project is three months behind schedule, thanks largely to opponents’ efforts to block the work, a lawyer for the company told a B.C. Supreme Court Justice on Wednesday. CGL is applying to have an interim injunction against impeding progress extended until the end of 2021 when the project is scheduled to be completed. Opponents, largely in the form of Wet’suwet’en heriditary chiefs, claim they have the right to prevent access to an area south of the Morice River under traditional law. Three days of arguments on the issue began Wednesday before Justice Marguerite Church at the Prince George courthouse. Providing an outline of the company’s position, CGL lawyer Kevin O’Callaghan said the company needs the Morice River Forest Service Road because it is the only way to reach the most difficult area of the project. So-called section eight will go over steep and mountainous terrain in the form of the Coast Mountains and while other sections can be completed more quickly, O’Callaghan said it will take right to the late-2021 deadline to complete that portion of the project. But he said an overland right of way into the start of section eight is currently only two kilometres long where it should be 12 km by this point in time. He said blockades had meant reconnaissance and surveying was delayed from November-December to January, adding up to two months. And once carried out, he said it was determined that five new bridges needed to be put into place, causing further delay.

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Moreover, he said a work camp is not yet occupied due to delays... Moreover, he said a work camp is not yet occupied due to delays, meaning 35 to 45 workers must travel four hours each day to get to the site and are being put up in area hotels. He said it works out to two days of extra travel time each week, adding up to an additional $1 million for CGL. O’Callaghan also highlight the economic impact. The pipeline is being built to supply natural gas to the LNG Canada liquified natural gas plant in Kitimat. Together, he said the projects add up to an estimated $40 billion with the pipeline accounting for $6.2 billion. He said benefit agreements have been reached with 20 First Nations along the route, including the five Wet’suwet’en elected bands, adding up to $338 million over 25 years. Contracts on the project add up to $620 million have also been awarded to First Nations and a further $400 million to other companies. In terms of consulting with the Wet’suwet’en, O’Callaghan said CGL officials have been working to understand their form of traditional governance by taking in presentations outlining the basis and attending workshops on Wet’suwet’en decision making. O’Callaghan also noted there is disagreement over who holds various titles in the Wet’suwet’en traditional form of governance and urged Church to avoid getting caught up in that controversy. “We say that the court should not enter into that fray... this is just not the venue to be deciding those issues,” he said.

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a ‘beautiful soul’ Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff A Smithers man who was behind the wheel during a rollover that led to the death of a 20-year-old Prince George man was sentenced Tuesday to two years plus a day in jail for drunk driving causing death. Appearing in provincial court in Smithers, Ashton Michael Lewis, 23, was also prohibited from driving for six years for the June 9, 2018 incident in the community west of Prince George. In issuing the sentence, Judge Judith Doulis agreed to a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels that also included concurrent terms of six months in jail for fleeing the scene of an accident and driving while prohibited under the Motor Vehicle Act. Recounting the circumstances, Doulis said it was about 10:45 p.m. when Lewis failed to negotiate a sharp turn where Railway Avenue turns into Pacific Avenue, rolling his car into a ditch. Taylor Blomquist, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected from the back seat and died at the scene while another man, Keegan Leiterman, who was in the front, escaped without significant injury. Lewis and Leiterman tried to hide the beer cans that had been in the car. Then Lewis fled the scene while Leiterman remained behind with Blomquist. Police later tracked Lewis to his home and arrested him there. At the detachment, Lewis provided breath samples that show between 145 and 167 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

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A RCMP reconstructionist estimated Lewis’ speed at 75 to 86 km/h in a 50 km/h zone while Leiterman estimated he was going 130 km/h. Victim impact statements from nine of Blomquist’s family members were submitted to the court. Doulis said his mother, Sandra Miller, is crushed by grief and may never move beyond the pain and anger at her loss. Miller described her son as a “beautiful soul. He was very handsome and kind. He had a great sense of humour, a mischievous grin, sparking eyes and a great love for his family.” Blomquist’s uncle, Jason Richardson, had brought his nephew along with him to Smithers to help him paint an apartment building. Richardson said he continues to carry guilt because he suspected Lewis was impaired but let Blomquist go with him. “I’ll never forget getting a text from my sister in the middle of the night: ‘My baby is gone... Taylor is dead.’ I still can’t even think about him or talk about it without breaking down,” Richardson said in his victim impact statement. Lewis’ driving record includes two 90day immediate roadside prohibitions and, at the time, he had been prohibited from driving due to a conviction for speeding. Lewis pleaded guilty to drunk driving causing death and apologized to Blomquist’s family in court, “which I find showed insight and fortitude given the emotionally-charged atmosphere,” Doulis said. The full decision is posted with this story at www.pgcitizen.ca.

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