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thetriblnftuesday september 9 1997p s playing in traffic top photo blair kidney an environmentalist with the ministry of environment and energy adjusts the remote sensor device to meter vehicle exhaust pollutants on the stouffville road onramp to hwy 404 above kidney and partner ron bell of the ministrys standards development branch monitor and chart the data gathered photos by steve somerville smog rover on trail of exhaust emissions mike adler staff reporter i gave two guys in a chevy van the chance to eat my exhaust but my exhaust wasnt that bad its good enough to pass inspection by the smog rover whose crew has been breath ing car emissions all summer for ontarios ministry of the environment and energy when the breeze from your tailpipe con tains more than one per cent carbon mon oxide they say youre part of the provinces smog problem surprisingly i wasnt you were at point seven so as far as were concerned you came in clean rover employee blair kidney said after i drove past the parked van on a highway onramp and i wasnt alone about 79 per cent of the 51 1 cars and light trucks driving by the rover at stouffville road and hwy 404 thursday had clean emissions under one per cent thats not hard to do stressed kidney and fellow rover errol gaskin just keep your car welltuned and maintained they said as long as you follow the cars mainte nance schedule you generally will get clean emissions kidney advised but the rover also counted 110 vehicles that were poorly tuned on the ancient monochrome computer screen set up on its back seat the worst exhaust of the day contained a dizzying 15 per cent carbon monoxide environment minister norm sterling who sent kidney and gaskin on their mis sion is promising to get tough on smog starting next year cars and light trucks in the greater toronto area will have to pass a smog test before owners can renew their registration heavy trucks will have to do it once a year when they get a safety check the test is supposed to cost 30 or less motorcycles antique cars and farm vehi cles wont need a test though for running tests the smog rover crew set an infrared lamp it looks like a tube across from a receiver a portable generator and a tank of canned gases found in smog the vans computer read the amount of carbon monoxide seen in the invisible beam of light which must be carefully aligned even a centimetre off could give us absolutely nothing said gaskin brothers asleep when fire breaks out in cattle barn from page 1 while the whitchurchstouffville fire depart ment was making its way to the farm just south of bloomington sideroad deputy fire chief murray emmerson allowed himself a personal moment emmerson knew the farm he was born there my dad sold the farm to their dad in 1946 i was raised here for six or seven years said emmerson thats not all emmerson and the farm commu nity have in common for a firefighter at a time like this theres little time for sentiment barn fires are tough to fight and this was no exception there was no chance to save the calves or the cow no hope for most of the barn cats no time to salvage the tons of winter feed including hundreds of bails of hay and tons of grain and corn there was little time to dwell on the past nor to comprehend the full financial loss when a barn complete with stock and winter feed goes up in flames thousands upon thousands of dollars are lost theres no such thing as full farm insur ance coverage such is life on a farm it was fully engulfed when we got here said fire chief bill brown all the water in stouf fville couldnt have touched this one all we could do was keep the other buildings from going up cause of the fire is unknown at this time stressed brown an antique tractor which belonged to a neigh bour was pulled away from the blaze it was dam aged but the attached forge harvester seemed intact in the dark of night the neighbours using their own tractors moved expensive farm machinery out of a nearby utility barn placing it out of harms way meanwhile whitchurchstouffville fire fighters formed a watertanker shuttle system it included a tanker from the markham fire department firefighters worked throughout the night and into mid morning just to keep the damage to a mini mum everybody did everything they could said margaret the neighbours and the fire depart ment worked hard as dawn broke don and jim faced another cri sis the herd had to be milked their nephew scott paisley provided the answer joined by other farmers paisley returned to his farm to milk a large herd others meanwhile began the job of loading the 34 surviving cows onto cattle trucks and horse trailers the cows were nervous and heavy with milk still they were alive to ensure that thered be no mix up between herds don white using a spray paint can marked each cow as it was loaded it was a dull task per formed on a day hed never forget yes it is hard white said at 9 am in keeping with the law the ontario governments milk board was notified of the fire milk board officials agreed the milk from whites herd would be weighed and picked up at the paisley farm earlier the farm vet had arrived to doctor the badly burned bull the decision to put the bull down or attempt try to save him would have to be made again there was no time for sentiment the bull is no pet but still it hurts you could see the pain on don whites face strike disrupts student timetables mike adler staff reporter some local public high school students are stuck in classes they dont want partly because of work not done during their teachers recent strike school principals say its normal for teens to want to add and drop courses once school begins but the twoweek strike made the routine more difficult by delaying timetable changes and regis tration for new students stouffville district high school started timetable changes yesterday staff spent last week just registering new students and quite a few students still need help said principal rod leonard its going to take us at least the rest of the week to get this done he said theyre following the classes theyre given leonard added in some cases its not the class es they want but theyre given it so theyre fol lowing that guidance staff have been busy often working extra hours to make the changes and were close to finishing the job yesterday at two local schools at two others students may not be attending all classes they want until next week its unfair that some pupils can attend their cho sen classes and some cant said the father of one student at middlefield collegiate institute in markham so far reported the parent on friday a daughter at middlefield is supposed to sit in the cafeteria and do nothing for one class if they are not ready to open why did they open the school he asked the number of displaced students at middle- field was down to a handful friday said principal jim gilliland who hoped those remaining would get their timetables adjusted by this afternoon i cant squeeze anything more out of my peo ple here gilliland added given that there was nothing done last week im astounded at where we are now most students at markham district high school are in classes all day but a few are not said prin cipal fred sadler they may have one blank on their schedule he said yesterday adding some are sitting in on classes they want to take like other schools mdhs did its registrations first then started course changes for oac stu dents and ninth graders it hopes to finish the rest by the middle of next week sadler said adding that as an overflow school it always takes a while to adjust each fall yesterday principal mike wasylenky said timetables at markville secondary school are in pretty good shape and all changes might be done by end of the day or perhaps this morning no one is out of class at unionville high school and all students have a timetable said principal dennis connor the teachers union is voting on its twoyear contract deal with the board thursday and the board is expected to ratify the agreement monday houston ford mercury bill houston ford mercury sales ltd 1 1 769 highway 48 stouffville 640 454 1 r invoice mercury see dealer for details our customers are the focus of everything we do ff mrmm j i o u u s bloomington s stouffville rd hwyf line major mackenzie z pi 2