SPEC Headlines, April 25, 2004

Spring at the Sanitary Landfill Site
Jeanie LeLacheur

    Real Coté, a Gaspé citizen and landowner near the landfill site is
concerned.  Mr. Coté has kept an eye on the site  throughout the winter, as
he snowshoes on a regular basis, and is appalled at the amount of debris
that is being carried by prevalent west winds to the surrounding area.  The
suggestion that the Gaspé landfill accept garbage from neighbouring MRC¹s
is what prompted Real¹s  April 13th meeting with local media. The garbage is
spread out for approximately a half kilometre, says Mr. Coté, often the
brook which has been deviated to  by-pass the land fill site  but still
empties into the York River has a lot of garbage in it.  A short walk to the
lower side of the highway confirms those facts, as spring thaw reveals  all
manner of debris  in and around  the waterway leading to the River.  "This
is what we see,  says Mr. Coté gesturing towards the littered ground and the
plastic bags hanging from trees near the site, inside the woods is just as
bad."  Mr. Coté is quick to point out  that he is not an extremist, "I
understand that we have to have a dump but we can't contain the garbage we
have now."

NEW RICHMOND: Prefects change their position in favor of dump expansion
Gilles Gagné

     Avignon and Bonaventure MRC prefects Bertrand Berger and Jean-Guy
Poirier have changed their stand and now favor the expansion of the New
Richmond landfill site in order to solve the problem of waste disposal in
the Baie des Chaleurs area.
    Facing the high cost of hauling thousands of tons of garbage to the
Gaspé landfill site and following their decision to abandon the Chandler
solution since, Gaspesia Papers have financial problems, prefects Berger and
Poirier now come back to what they consider the best solution.
    "In reality, we have always favored New Richmond (...) It is a solution
that seems technically very good", says Mr. Berger. He does not exclude the
emergence of other locations that could prove suitable but he sees more
hurdles than positive factors attached to the Robidoux site, located in the
back country of New Richmond, on non-organized land, or to the New Carlisle
location, a piece of land bought by five municipalities many years ago.

Controversy over a Fauvel seaweed storage project
Gilles Gagné

BONAVENTURE - The project of a businessman from Saint Basile-le-Grand is
stirring controversy in Fauvel because he wants to build a house and a
warehouse to store seaweed in a green zone that runs along the beach.
Citizens of the area fear that they will no longer have access to the beach
if Raymond Ferembach, gets the permit to erect the house and  storage
building.
    Mr. Ferembach has been harvesting  seaweed  along the shores of the Baie
des Chaleurs since 1994. He holds a licence from the federal department of
Fisheries and Oceans which allows him to harvest 40 tons of seaweed per year
between Caplan and New Carlisle.
    Until recently, his processing was done in a plant he owned in Saint
Denis-sur-Richelieu. He sold the plant and intends to settle in Fauvel. The
piece of land he wants to buy is located near the limits of New Carlisle,
next to McGraw Road.
    "We have an option on the piece of land. Actually, we are already late.
The biomass is extraordinarily rich. It is a natural product. Our harvesting
methods are devised  to protect the resource. We cut living weed one foot
from the bottom of the sea, so that it can grow again.  Our permit is valid
for 40 tons. That is just 80,000 pounds. We want to use the barn to dry the
seaweed and grind it. It will then be put in bags and delivered to
greenhouses as a fertilizer, or to cosmetic product manufacturers", explains
80-year-old Raymond Ferembach, a retired film maker.