www.pgcitizen.ca | Wednesday, September 9, 2009 5 news LACED UP - Eighty-year-old Chuck Selden,of Tidewater, Ore., ties his skates as he prepares to play a hockey game with players, all 80 years old and over,from the Geriatric Hockey League in Burnaby on Tuesday. Players from across Canada and the United States played in the hopes of setting a Guinness World Record. CP photo C A P S U L E Ac EVERGREEN PHARMACY Jim Ewert Pharmacist C O M M E N T S It's always nice to see a quick formula for a long and healthy life. Four things seem to always appear in this formula: no smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, moderate regular physical activity and five servings of fruit and vegetables per day. One other factor contributes: a sense of how meaningful and manageable you feel life is for you helping you want to get out of be each day. Myopia is an eye condition that limits the ability of the eye to focus on distant objects. It appears to be more common today than ever before. Part of the reason for this is that today's youth spend more time looking at computers and cell phones and less time focusing on things outside. So the eye muscles become weak. We hear a lot about clinical studies today. It's important to know how many people were in the study how long the study lasted and whether the results of the study have been reproduced in another studies One of the best studies ever is the Framingham Heart Study. It started in 1948 to study the characteristics common to heart disease. It is still going on with the second and third generation beyond the original 5209 participants. Much has been learned from this great project. An article from the US stated that 125,000 Americans die from not taking their heart medications as the doctor prescribed. The reason can be simply not remembering. If this is a problem for you, talk to our staff about special methods to help you remember your medications. Our pharmacy staff members are here to help you Talk to use about any of your medication questions. Hart Drug Mart 6707 Dagg Rd 250-962-9666 Mon - Fri: 9am - 9pm Sat: 9am - 6pm Sun & Hol: 10 - 6pm EVERGREEN PHARMACY Evergreen Pharmacy 1467 - 3rd Ave 250-564-7147 Mon - Fri: 9am - 5:30pm 8 Sat: 9am - 5pm 8 We accept all prescription drug plans Schools worried cuts could hurt flu prep The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — School boards across British Columbia are worried the province’s cut to their maintenance costs will hamper their efforts to ward off the spread of H1N1, as well as force them to cancel plans to upgrade aging facilities. “As we gear up for another year and face increased challenges stemming from the need to respond to H1N1, this sudden decision puts us in an extremely difficult (position) as we look to how we’re going to keep operating safely,” said Patti Bacchus, chairman of the Vancouver school board. The province’s medical health officer has said closing schools to fend off the spread of the flu pandemic won’t be done unless illness means there aren’t enough teachers reporting for work. Provincial health officials and schools have launched campaigns aimed at get- ting kids to wash their hands frequently and encouraging parents to keep students at home if they show signs of illness. But the province has not committed extra funding to provide hand sanitizer in schools. Bacchus said the provincial health ministry has told schools what to do to prevent the spread of the virus, but there is no money to act on the recommendations. flyer index in today’s Citizen.. • Jysk ■ Visions Electronics ' Staples Business Depot* ' Home Hardware* in your next Citizen. Zellers 1 RK Furniture Home Hardware The Source Tropical Pool Northern Hardware Appliance Centre Walmart* 1 Mark’s Work Warehouse* If you did not receive your flyer please call The Citizen t Reader Sales Department at 250-562-3301 j ReCyClt Moil - Fri: 5:30am - 5:00pm & Saturdays: 5:30am - Noon ^Selected Areas Only Today’s action on the Web on pgcitizen.ca Firm hopes to re-open sawmill Gordon Hoekstra Citizen staff Pacific BioEnergy has purchased a small, shuttered sawmill in northwest B.C, which it hopes will provide a “beachhead” for the Prince George-grown company to build a wood pellet business in the region. The private company, which operates a wood pellet plant in the BCR industrial site in Prince George, plans to re-open the Kit-wanga sawmill when the market conditions are right. Lumber has been in a long-term slump, but some analysts are predicting the start of a turnaround in the near future. The idea is to coincide the sawmill’s resumption with the start up of a new pellet plant in the Kitwanga area, about 350 kilometres west of Prince George. The sawmill and pellet plant would each create about 50 jobs. The sawmill includes a timber harvesting licence for about 2,000 logging truck loads of timber a year. Pacific BioEnergy would not put any timelines on their plans, but stressed the intention is to grow its pellet business which has shown resilience in the face of the global recession. “There’s still things to do for the pellet plant - location, logistics, sales contract, financing - but obviously we didn’t buy the sawmill to let it sit idle. We bought it to build a pellet plant,” said Pacific BioEnergy official Brad Bennett. Bennett would not disclose a price for the sawmill, which was in receivership, but noted that a new pellet plant would cost anywhere from $25 million to $45 million depending on its size. The Kitwanga Lumber Co. closed its small mill in the fall of 2008, one of the few remaining operating mills in northwest B.C. The sawmill operation has an opportunity to create residual material - sawdust and chips - which can be used to feed a pellet plant, noted Bennett, who said the company had been looking for opportunities in northwest B.C. for a year. The pellet plant, in turn, strengthens the economics of the sawmill, which now has a home for its wood residuals, said Bennett. Pacific BioEnergy also hopes to use logging waste - branches and tree tops - as it has done at its Prince George pellet plant, and also decadent logs which cannot be used to produce lumber. “What creates the real attractive situation is, there is lots of wood out there (in northwest B.C.) that is decadent. A lot of it is not suitable for lumber production, and therefore it creates the right recipe for pellets,” said Bennett. Unlike in the Northern Interior, which has a glut of deteriorating timber from the pine beetle epidemic, in the northwest, the older ages of the timber in the temperate rain forest means that a portion of it is essentially rotting. In the past, the deteriorating timber has been used to produce pulp. However, when the pulp mill in Prince Rupert closed, a key market for the deteriorating wood dried up. Since then, many sawmills in northwest have closed, including two in Terrace and another near Hazel-ton. The Kitwanga sawmill had produced mostly lumber from green hemlock and cedar. Four rescued in alleged border crossing attempt The Canadian Press KEREMEOS — A group of four Mexicans who became lost in the rugged mountains along the B.C.-Washington border in what police allege may have been an attempt to sneak into the United States are now recovering in an American hospital. The RCMP says emergency officials received a 911 call on Sunday evening from a group stranded on a mountaintop somewhere near the B.C. towns of Keremeos and Osoyoos, possibly on the U.S. side of border. Sgt. Greg Dickie says bad weather prevented search efforts from starting until Monday morning. Search-and-rescue teams from B.C. and Washington state, the RCMP and U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback and in SUVs were involved, as were U.S. aircraft. Two men, a woman and a five-year-old boy were found by a U.S. navy helicopter Monday afternoon, and were taken to an American hospital to be treated for dehydration and mild hypothermia. Dickie says the group have refused to provide officials with any information as U.S. and Canadian border officials investigate. Dickie says they may have travelled from the Vancouver area to Keremeos, where they may have had guides who dropped them off in the woods and told them which way to go. “The investigation at this point is indicating that they were possibly smuggled into the U.S. from Canada,” said Dickie. “At the time of the 911 calls, they estimated they had been walking for five hours since they crossed the border into the U.S.” OUR FAIL PROGRAM GUIDE IS OUT NOW! Pick up your copy at the Family YMCA front desk or go online to view at www.pgymca.bc.ca Y YMCA W l- build ’■In mj; Idd*, sUtfuig hirnLIkt, stCfujljr CfliamtUlMtlH In The Guide: Membership Semites & ftenehts, Health & ftwpalion Prngiams, Yoylh h Ip^ikushcp, Lrienstxl Child trire, Special EvenLS.Gloup Fitness Spot L leagues and More! 654316 2sa.5G2.93Ji -www.pgymia.bc.ta