Weyerhauser Hit

Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd. took a $200,000 hit, on July 15, when a front-end loader was borrowed from a mill to break through its fence. Three hundred and eighty feet of railroad track was dismantled, halting the movement of pulp cars, as well as loads from Sterling Pulp Chemicals. The finale brought the loader crashing into a power pole, taking out the main power line at the motor control center.

The action followed a ground-breaking report in the Edmonton Journal suggesting a link between higher-than-average birth defects in northern Alberta and pollution the Wapiti, Smoky and other rivers.

Weyerhauser has received several such visits, including the burning of rail cars full of pulp in 1995 and again in 1996.

Suspicions are rising. Once thought to be unrelated, Lloyd Steeves, spokesperson for Grand Prarie's Weyerhauser Canada Ltd., postulates that "as more of these events occur it causes one to believe they're not at random."

When the loader was found against the power line with its wheels still spinning.