Government Not In Love With Mobile Fish Plant Idea

Government Not In Love With Mobile Fish Plant Idea

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 13:21

A Uranium City man is wondering what it’s going to take to finally get provincial funding for his mobile fish plant proposal on Lake Athabasca.

Steve Powder says he’s been pressing Northern Affairs for eight years to provide him $56,000 in capital he says he needs to make the necessary improvements to his barge.

Powder feels it would not only revitalize the summer fishery on Lake Athabasca, it would also create about a dozen jobs.

He was told the project was not viable, but says department officials also let it slip that it might threaten the proposed fish processing plant in Prince Albert.

Northern Affairs spokesman Glenn McKenzie says he can’t comment on whether any funding proposal the department receives is viable, but he says Northern Affairs doesn’t view the export of Lake Athabasca fish to the States as a threat to the long-awaited facility in P.A.

The project in Prince Albert has been stalled for several months because fishers and the FFMC have been haggling over a business plan.