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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1980-03-27, Page 40 ERICH S.JQ AL -STAR, THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1980 Second class mail registration' number — 0716 Your News Port in the County Town Founded hi 1/40 aid published every Thursday at Goderich. Ontario. Member of the CCNA end OWNA. Advertising rales on request. Subscriptions payable In advance '19..00 in Canada, "95.09 to U.S.A., 'MOO to all other countries, single coplot'd9'. Display advartisina.rates avellabla.on request. Plaose'ask for Rate Cord No. 9 effective Sept. T. 1079, Second lass mail Registration. Number 0719. Advertising Is accepted on tho condltign that In the avant of typoarophlcoi error, the advertising space occupied by the erroneous Item, together with reasonable allowance for algneturo. will not be charged for but the balance at the advertisement will bo paid for at the applicable rate. Willa event of.a typogrephlcal error advertising goads or servlcos of a wrong price. goods or service may not be sold. Advertising b merely an offer to sell, and may be Withdrawn at any time. The Signal -Star is not responsible for the Toss or damage of unnohpted manuscripts or photos. PUBLISHED BY SIGNAL -STAR PUBLISHING ROBERT G. SHRIER — President and Publisher DONALD M. HUBICK — Advertising Manager DAVID SYKES — Assistant Editor SHIRLEY J. KELLER — Editor P.O. BOX 220, " Industrial Park, Goderich Business and Editorial Office TELEPHONE (519) 524-8331 Beer garden okay—decision steps poor The discussion at last week's town council meeting about the proposed been. garden at the Optimists' outdoor festival, was a revealling commentary on the unprofessional way in which some current town officials continue' to carry out the municipality's business. • Few taxpayers will- find fault with -council's decision to allow the Optimists to follow through on their plans to incorporate a licensed outlet into their folk music and craft festival scheduled for late June. Those who do object will undoubtedly be neighbors of Harbor Park where the festivities will take place and perhaps a few others who, though not vocal, remain convinced that the sale of in- toxicating beverages has no place on the town's public parkland. But .generally, there will be approval for the Optimists' beer garden. And if the Kinsmen's beer, tent and the Lions' festival garden are any in- dicators, the Optimists' beer garden will be highly profitable. Reeve Eileen Palmer and Councillor John Doherty are right. There's money in the sale of booze and any public event planned without the aid of such beverage is doomed to limited financial success. It's a fact. And the reeve sc.ored. another point when she emphatically verbalized what service clubs have been saying all along: the community's hand doesn't shake when it comes to the service clubs for donations from funds earned through the sale of booze. It's true. What does not sit right is the attitude of some councillors that other councillors were "dumb" because they did not know from the Optimists' intital pitch to council that a beer garden was in- cluded in the planning. If that is so, then the Signal -Star reporter must also be termed "dumb" because there was no mention of a beergarden in the story about the Optimist outdoor festival which appeared in the March 13 edition of the newspaper. Furthermore, if some councillors did know at the time of decision making that a beergarden was intepded, it must have been information gleaned outside the council chambers. There was certainly no mention of a beergarden either in the printed submission to council or in the spoken submission. In that light then, council members should begin to see that either information learned outside the council chambers must be disseminated to all council members and if possihle to the press, or that information should not be utilized in the decision making process by privileged members. The Optimist Club may now appear to some to have deliberately attempted to pull the wool over council's eyes. Unfortunately, there will be those citizens who will be unnecessarily speculating on the real reasons for "not calling a spade a spade". Obviously from Councillor John Doherty's statement,' he was never fooled. But other coun- cillors were foaled and four members of council including, Mayor Harry Worsell Were sufficiently concerned about their decision to support Coun- cillor Elsa Haydon's motion to'start all over again and hear a more complete submission from the Optimists. Doherty's little name calling foray doesn't put him in the clear. If Doherty understood there was to be a beer garden in connection with the festival, he should also have understood that getting that in- formation out into the openwould prevent all manner of misunderstandings in the weeks and months ahead. He should have been able to foresee that it would be the very young and inexperienced Optimists that would lose face in'the community. It is just such arbitrary thinking that frequently prevents council from making decisions without demeaning' 'arguments and insinuations. Every council member in the chamber is dedicated and devoted to Goderich. But there is too much dependence on self and not enough concern for the whole, for council here to function in abusinesslike, commendable manner. - SJK Will OHIO' eventually fall apart? An editorial recently in The Wingham Advance Times points out that contrary to the survey fin- dings of The Hon. Dennis Timbrell, provincial health minister, the Majority of people in Ontario is not at all happy with' the present health care delivery system. The editorial goes on to say,that citizens in this province do not like to fork over hard cash when they need the services of a doctor who has opted out of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). And, the editorial continues, OHIP will not work properly until the problem of the opted out doctor has been solved. The Wingham editor claims there hasn't been too much public sympathy for the doctors of—this -province. And that's probably true. Doctors are notoriously more highly paid than. almost everyone else, and that fact seems to grate against the grain of.many ordinary folk. And doctors are growing more and more in- dependent. The days are long gone since the town's doctor was on call 24 hours a day seven days a week 52 weeks of_ the year. Many physicians now can expect regular weekend breaks and a few can enjoy several weeks of holidays in a year. There's little doubt the lot of the family doctor in Ontario is improvingfrom that standpoint at least. But still doctors are very special people with very specialized skills. When someone you love is in pain .or in danger of death, it is the doctor you call and it is the doctor in whom you put,,,your trust. In a time like that, the price of a doctor is secondary. Moreover, at that moment the salary to be earned is secondary to the doctor as well. Doctors in Ontario have been permitted only very small increases in their rates during the same years when almost all other wage earners have been 'able to realize increases of from seven to 12 percent annually. This is indeed one of the weak spots in an otherwise good health care system. As the Wingham editor declares, unless it is corrected, OHIP could well fall apart. - SJK About misprints Misprints are the bane of a newspaper's existence. And it is getting worse for modern day publications where proofreading is a thing of the past and rush, rush, rush is the order of the day. For instance, the Goderich reeve does not want to show the Bay City delegation a "good, firedly time" as was stated in last week's edition of The Goderich Signal -Star. She.,wants to show them- a "good, friendly time". The editor was mortified to discover Vials for Life spelled "Viles" in some places in her editorial. Inconsistency isn't difficult to achieve. What's more, columnist and assistant editor Dave Sykes does know, the difference between "there" and "their" and he knows he's a journalist and not a journalsist. To be honest though, he might not know it is dutiful rather than dutiful). He has trouble with that. One- thing i -s- certain. If Signal -Star readers are critical bf the spelling and punctuation errors found in this newspaper, it is ,nothing compared to the anguish suffered by newspaper staff each and every week. as they pour over the pages looking for faux pas. Only believe they are unintentional and totally embarrassing to the crew at the Signal -Star office. And take heart in the fact it is weekly proof that there are still some human hands at work in a highly mechanized world. - SJK s tJ .ere an answer! sov Some enterprizing Canadians thirik there is! BY SHIRLEY J.KELLER -People- in and -around Goderichne-- different from people everywhere in Ontario. They are deeply concerned about the energy crisis. They wonder: Is it real? Is it serious? Is there a solution? How will it affect me? In fact, there's a growing feeling of animosity in Ontario - maybe even among Goderich and area folk - towards Peter Lougheed, the so-called Shiek of Alberta. Somehow Ontarions believe they . are being cheated by fellow Canadians in the west - held up, paying a ransom for Canada's own resources. More and more people are `asking: Who really owns the rich deposits of fuel -in Canada? `Should provincial boun- daries constitute ownership of resources found within those borders? Isn't it wiser and more beneficial to the nation as a whole to share the country's resources and pool the nation's wealth? Last week, an editorial in The Goderich Signal -Star pointed up the fact that easterners and westerners in Canada simply don't understand each other. It called for renewed effort on the part of all Canadians to genuinely make an attempt to get to know each other and each other's problems. It claimed that only through such grassroot, com- munication and comprehension can real understanding and future co-operation between east and west happen. But such airi idealistic undertaking takes time. And according to many Canadians, time is something there isn't. much of ,when it comes to matters of energy. that can be done to save Ontario from becoming crippled by the lack of fuel to satiate the province's enormous industrial appetite for elec- tricity and gas and oil? Happily for Ontario, some forward thinking people aren't sitting back wringing their hands in despair. Right in this neighborhood of the province, there are dedicated pioneers who are con- vinced that "Ontario is adequately equipped to fuel its industry and, in fact, to attract an expanded industrial base". And what's more, this group from Kincardine's Huron Ridge Limited spearheaded by N.J. "Sam" MacGregor and B.W.Schmidt in association with Conestoga -Rovers and Associates and 'MacNaughton. Planning Consultants Ltd. has prepared An Ontario Energy Selfsufficiency report which should 'make the elected and appointed officials in Toronto's Queen's Park think seriously about the alternatives that are .not only possible but highly probable right now. The report states the Ontario dilemma this way: Events of the past several years and particularly the past few months, make it obvious that Ontario stands alone in her wish to continue to fuel the nation's • industrial heartland with energy at a price which allows Ontario's industry to continue to com- pete in the world marketplace. ' B ui unlike.most-.r.epox-ts,_this--one_offer.s_ _.- a workable and apparently affordable solution. This report offers to _"direct Ontario toward energy self-sufficiency". It claims that if followed, it will "provide all of the requirements . necessary to achieve economic and social stability". The key is the primary industrial quality steam which is available from nuclear reactors like the one at Bruce Nuclear Power Development. The goal is to take advantage of this existing alternative energy which can replace oil in many varied industrial applications. • Exciting2_You bet— The report says that industrial quality steam is produced in excess at the Bruce nuclear plant. "The cancellation and storage of 50 percent of the designed heavy water production facility renders the Bruce uniquely adaptable to serve industry with process steam," the report says. The use of -process steam isn't new. Dow Chemicals and Consumers Power in Michigan has undertaken to provide four million pounds per hour of process steam to the chemical industry. This process steam supply replaces all of the fossil fuels used by that industry, in the creation of several thousand jobs. The use of process steam isn't even new to Ontario Hydro. The report notes that Ontario Hydro has provided technical " advice on- the project in Michigan. The report claims that the . efective, power gain through combined power use of the presently constructed facility at the Bruce is equal to two-thirds of the current production of synthetic crude From the Syncrude project. "The Bruce site, having the benefit of an existing co -generation facilify, is now dramatically under-utilized," the writers of the Kincardine report insist. "This facility is available immediately. .It is sufficiently sized to allow many' years of active industrial steam supply in harmony with the location of the power plant." There are many acres of land im- mediately adjacent to the power plant which could be used for industrial .development fed from the Bruce “3$, USE AS A •(TG,q CUE! G.ct CONTAINS LEAD development. That in itself is mind- , boggling. Ah ea-dy—th-e—Bruc AgriPark has provided an introduction to the4practical use of waste heat from the Bruce. All >i kinds of vegetables are growithere in greenhouses warmed by steam from the Bruce. But there are other things outlined in the report which sound absolutely fascinating. It talks about salt solution mining - using. nuclear steam to release this resource from the salt beds lying beneath Lake Huron and its shoreline. The salt solution and the agricultural products from the farmlands of Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth Counties can act on each other so as to furnish a "broad range of primary and secondary °.in- dustrial and food products". The report lists such things as grain drying,, food dehydration canneries,' breweries, distilleries, crystal and fructose sweetener plants and the in- tegrated by-products from their processing. There's all kinds of other highly. technical suggestions in the report. The Goderich Signal -Star is committed to• understanding the--. impact and im- plications of these things, and passing this knowledge along, in ,layman's terms, to readers within the next few weeks. But one thing that can be readily understood by readers is the suggestion for an ethanol plant in the area of the Bruce Nuclear plant. Both Brazil and Russia are producing ethanol and methanol in a major way. Corn grain is one of the products necessary to the production of ethanol. According to the report-, farms in the area of the Bruce plant would provide the corn feedstock for a 4,000 barrel per day ethanol plant. This product, added to 36,000 barrels of unleaded gasoline, would, because of the increased octane resulting from the mixture, provide a combustion equivalent to 42,000 barrels of gasoline. Only the carbohydrates would be removed from the cors'. Most of the nutritional value of the grain would remain in the residue which would be fed on the farm feelots surrounding the plant. Talk about getting mileage for your money! Speaking of money, the report says a plant of this magnitude would cost about $60 million to construct. It would „demand 250,000 pounds of steam per hour; four megawatts of electrical power; and would inject some $70 Million annually directly into the economy in the form of operating costs. The concluding paragrahs in the report are ominous but hopeful. "Ontario stands on the threshold of economic recession," the report states. "The industrial stability of Canada depends on the well-being of the Province of Ontario. Other Canadian jurisdictions have made it necessary for -O -n -tar io to a c hie ve en ergy se It sufficiency on its own. "Time is truly short," the report warns. "Ontario should begin to implement the creation of North America's first Energy Centre immediately," it suggests. "Unnecessary procrastination will cause sufficient delay to allow the potential to wither on the vine." Necessity . is still the Mother of Invention. BY HIRLEY J.KELLER Ah Spring. Let me be the first to write about Spring. First let me explain I'm writing this column on Thursday, March 20. That explanation is essential at the outset, for between writing and reading, the weather at this time of year can change drastically. But today, it appears the hack of winter is broken and the glory of Spring is all around us. Everywhere there is sunshine, warming the ground and coaxing the (rowers to come through^. The stubborn mounds of ugly grey gook that were once piles of fluffy white snow are slowly melting away in rivulets run- ning every which way into gorgeous mud puddles for kids to splash in. The sidewalks are crowded with tricycles and wagons out for their initial Spring spin. Boys and girls have shed their heavy fur -lined galoshes in favor of light -weight rubberboots, pertcct for wading through ponds of mysteriously murky water. Here and there people are out sur- veying the landscape. Perhaps a rosebush there. Maybe a birdbath here. Haven't the shrubs come through the winter well? Too bad the neighbors aren't willing to remove that rusty fence. Garage doors are open for the first time in a long time. Kids on holidays are commissioned to clean the clutter of winter from the garage floor - broken hockey sticks, bark from the firewood, the remains of autumn's leaf collec- tion. Curtains are removed from windows and hung in the backyard to air. Scrub pails and sponges are the order of the day as panes of glass in all sizes are washed of winter's stains to let every bit of Spring's sunshine indoors. Lights 15turn late into the evening this week as mom and dad complete that wallpapering project in the bathroom or paint a mural on the nursery wall, Golf clubs are dragged out for assessment - irons are shone, bags are emptied of last year's score cards, wheels on carts are oiled and pledges of "a better season in 1980" are muttered as determined putting practice begins in the livingroom. The summer sale cataiogue becomes required reading for all ages and all sexes. -There's information there about everything from what's new for the beach this year to selecting a tent for the annual fishing trip with the boys. Gardeners get anxious about now, checking their cold frames for suitable temperatures for planting tomato seeds and browsing through the stores for handy gadgets to make the sum- mer's work easier and more rewar- ding. Dad inspects the car for new rust spots that may have developed over the winter. He may even pull out the floor mats to vacuum away winter's debris inside .,, or sort through the odds and sods in the trunk with an eye to discarding some. There's fishing tackle to organize and hip waders to test for water wor- thiness. There's 'summer dresses and shorts and sunsuits to be tried on ... and diets to begin so these briefer beauties look as good - or better - as they did in 1979. There's the annual ten -speed in- spection - and the campaign for a newer model to plan. There's skipping ropes to find; tennis rackets to mend; baseball spikes to huy. There's the income tax form to fill out ... but who wants to remember that. And if you are like me; there's a bright new future to consider. For Spring is a time of renewal like none other. It is a season for fresh starts and bigger, better beginnings, In Spring I'm gladder than ever to be alive if only for a few precious days. I'm hopeful that things are going to turn out right for me. I'm confident that life holds promise for all. Ah Spring. Let me be the first to write aboutSrping.