Just What Chance Does An Ice Expert Have? One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

If you are wondering how big a play the ice jam expert, Paul Laplante of Eco Technologies will get in showing the City how to attack the ice jam at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser, it can be found in the fact that not one member of the EOC had contacted Laplante.

 It was the Director of Operations for the Provincial Emergency Program, Jim Whyte,  who is having Laplante jump on a plane to come  see the jam first hand. 

Jim Whyte left his ego at home.  He is, in my mind, a no nonsense guy who is interested in finding a solution to the problem, whether it comes from a Prince George housewife, or the Premier.

I should point out that all of the people connected with the City emergency program had the info on Eco Technologies and their ability to break jams, because I sent it along to every one of them, the fact that they choose not to follow up speaks volumes.

On the other hand, Whyte  (Who you can get a hold of day or night) who  really doesn’t have the authority to overrule the City bunch, still  took the info and ran with it.

One suggestion coming from city hall was that Laplante wouldn’t be able to break up the ice because it was frozen right to the ground. If that were the case then you could go from every house in the bowl by canoe, and we would have a brand new lake in BC.

What nonsense that statement was and if it came from the two experts, fire them both.  How in the world  7,000 cubic feet of water can disappear, should leave them scratching their heads.

As for the some  who say  perhaps the people at City Hall don’t read the comments,  strange isn’t it that at least two people from the Premier's office said Sunday they read the comments on Opinion250, to keep up with the mood of the community.

If the plan to break up the ice with Laplante’s equipment doesn’t make it to the drawing board, you can be sure the decision came from the members of EOC. Now why you might ask would they want to pooh, pooh his way of breaking the jam?  Well if you already believe that 11- 45 gallon drums of warm water dripped on the ice every minute will thaw things out, you may have trouble accepting a more simple solution.

You might also have trouble figuring out why we didn’t open the side channel up in Cottonwood Park, you may also wonder why not one of the ice experts came up with the ideas of breaking the jam given that we were dropping about $1,000 dollars an hour for their efforts.

You can however rest assured that the pipe line from the pulp mill will arrive just before the spring thaw takes place and the engineers will be able to say, well it worked... in part.

If on the other hand they get the pipe running in the next couple of weeks and we hit a cold spell and everything goes sideways, they had better duck for cover, because they will find themselves, along with the entire EOC  sitting dead center in the sights of the people of this city.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.  

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