B. C. TAP WATER ALLIANCE
Caring for, Monitoring, and Protecting
British Columbia’s Community Water
Supply Sources
P.O. Box #39154, 3695 West 10th Ave.,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. V6R-1G0
Email – bctwaalternatives.com
Website – www.alternatives.com/bctwa

April 3, 2008

Chair & Council Members
Private Managed Forest Land Council
301 – 3980 Shelbourne St.
Victoria, B.C. V8N-6J3

Comments and Critique of PMFLC’s March 13, 2008 Decision
re TimberWest Logging Violation in Beech Creek,Comox Lake, Vancouver Island (File IN0703)

On May 21, 2007, I registered a complaint to the PMFLC wherein I provided photos and
description of an alleged violation of clearcut logging along the Beech Creek water course by
TimberWest (the complaint is registered, along with presentation information about Comox Lake, in a section on the Tap Water Alliance’s website, under “Community Watershed Issues”). On April 1, 2008, some ten months later, I finally received information about my complaint, a copy of executive director Stuart Macpherson’s cover letter of March 26, 2008, and attached documents.
Reading the summary of facts, I was disappointed and astonished to learn that the PMFLC has rescinded its September 27, 2007 Determination charging TimberWest with a $35,000 penalty for two violations under Section 18 of the Private Managed Forest Land Council Regulation;
- and found on March 13, 2008 that “TimberWest could not have contravened the regulation”, because it “exercised due diligence under Section 29 of the Private Managed Forest Land Act.”
As argued below, I find it hard to believe that such a blatant violation of clearcut logging stretching 200 meters along a riparian zone on Beech Creek in the Comox Lake drinking watershed could simply be brushed off because the logging company, TimberWest, was considered by Council to be an upstanding and conscientious steward over its timberlands.

The Facts
The following are the “facts” as stated from three 2007, PMFLC documents found on the PMFLC’s website (www.pmflc.ca).
As documented in Stuart Hamilton’s July 2007 CW500 Block Assessment of TimberWest’s 2005 forestry operations at Beech Creek, “the left bank was completely logged and no trees were retained1 in the riparian area.” Though not specifically stated in the contents of Hamilton’s report, the map on page three of the report indicates some 200 meters of riparian area was completely removed.
Stuart Macpherson’s July 23, 2007 assessment report to the PMFLC states on page 2: “from my review of the facts outlined in Mr. Hamilton’s report it appears that the owner has contravened section 18 the Private Managed Forest Land Council Regulation as during harvesting sufficient trees along a 200 m section on one side of Beech Creek were not retained.”
Finally, in the PMFLC’s September 27, 2007 Determination, on page three it states that “all of the trees within the area located in the buffer area between the clearcut area and an approximate 200 m length of Beech Creek were felled and removed.” The report also states that “TimberWest does not dispute any of the evidence presented to the investigation report as the evidence relates to
describing the events which occurred in Block CW500.”
The information clearly points to the fact that there is every reason to believe that TimberWest was, and is still, responsible for violating Section 18 of the Private Managed Forest Council Regulation within the Beech Creek riparian zone in the Comox Lake drinking watershed, as well stated in the
PMFLC’s Determination, and should be charged accordingly.

Missing Reports

I did not receive, nor find on your website, a copy of TimberWest’s August 28, 2007 written response submission, nor TimberWest’s two written submissions provided to the PMFLC during the
appeal process in November, 2007 (the submissions are referred to in the Reconsideration as Appendix 1 and 2, but are not attached in the package I received). Seeing that I am the complainant,
I have to ask the PMFLC why these documents were not included in the package I received on
April 1, 2008, nor provided to me previously (additional concerns regarding the improper release of information are stated below).
Conversations with Mr. Macpherson
As I read through “all” the documents provided on your website, I became troubled not only about information reported in the documents, but also about the PMFLC and Mr. Macpherson. Allow me to explain.

During the course of 2007, following my written complaint of May 21, 2007, I contacted and spoke to Mr. Macpherson on both his cell phone and office land line on a number of separate instances. At no time, following the release of Mr. Macpherson’s July 2007 report, or following the release of
Mr. Hamilton’s July 2007 report, or following the arrival of TimberWest’s August 2007 response report, or following the finding of the PMFLC in September 2007, did Mr. Macpherson inform me of these reports, submissions or of the PMFLC Determination during our telephone conversations.
Mr. Macpherson, as described below, also failed to volunteer disclosure to me regarding the fact that he had been informed of this violation by TimberWest in July 2005, and that he had investigated the site in November 2005 and had, presumably, made his own determination. Mr. Macpherson stated to me on April 2, 2008 that he was not required to inform me of these matters. 2

The PMFLC’s Secret Determination of September 27, 2007
Why was the complainant, nor the public, left uninformed, out of the loop, by Mr. Macpherson, or by the PMFLC, of the Council’s Determination of September 27, 2007? I find this secrecy most disturbing, for both personal and greater public interest reasons. Aside from the perceived rights of a given complainant, members of the Comox Valley public, including the area’s newspaper
reporters, kept in keen contact with me throughout 2007 and early 2008 asking me for any updates from the PMFLC regarding my complaint. Now the public is confronted with information about a series of silent undertakings, where “public interest” has obviously been ill served and unprotected.
The Council had formally charged TimberWest with two violations under its Regulation, and yet it chose not to disclose this matter to the public – WHY NOT? The possible fact that the PMFLC simply forgot to do so, or that it thought it didn’t need to, is inexcusable, that goes without saying. I
then attempted to discover the reasons behind this matter from Mr. Macpherson in a conversation I had with him on the morning of April 2, 2008. Mr. Macpherson stated that “I actually asked whether to make this public. I was told that it wasn’t appropriate.” I then asked Mr. Macpherson who it was that instructed him not to make the Determination report public. He reluctantly admitted and identified that it was the PMFLC chair, Trevor Swan, who instructed him to keep the Determination from public disclosure.
Why would the PMFLC chair not wish to disclose its Determination to the public or to the respectful rights of the complainant? Of what benefit could such a decision to withhold disclosure possibly make, one might ask, based on this line of reasoning? Was there someone else behind the scenes instructing the chair to keep the Determination internal? Those are relevant questions.
I would hazard a comment, that such a controversial decision would obviously prevent the public and a keenly interested media from drawing attention to and investigate the violation, its nature,
TimberWest’s forestry practices within or without drinking watershed areas, and ultimately to the larger political arena, namely the controversial recent amended legislation by the BC Liberal government to private forest land legislation and regulations and oversight by the PMFLC.
Anyone who has been tracking the history of private forest land practices is familiar with the NDP government’s intent in the early 1990s, following the release of the 1991 Forest Resources Commission, to harmonize public and private forest lands under one equal legislative Forest Practices Code - years of public complaints and investigations had led up to the debates of 1994 and 1995. That intent has come under significant amendments and weakened purposes by the
present provincial administration, leading to the present practices, violations and frenzied
entrepreneurial activities on private forest lands, many of which have come under recent and intense public scrutiny.
Moreover, the element of secrecy seems to comply with many other governmental circumstances and delaying tactics in B.C., where members of the public are kept from obtaining documents and information.
By failing to disclose the Determination and the appeal process to the public, the PMFLC has only aided in making a smaller blemish larger, in that the later consequences, as witnessed in its delayed March 2008 Reconsideration, may actually now create “double trouble” by newly interested
inquiring minds on its highly questionable revision.

The July 25, 2005 Email from TimberWest and Mr. Macpherson’s SubsequentInvestigation File

The intrigue behind the PMFLC’s secrecy to not release the Determination report doesn’t seem to stop there. It apparently goes back a few years. In Mr. Macpherson’s assessment report of July 23, 2007 (Investigation Report: Harvesting beside Beech Creek, Comox Lake Community Watershed), he provides some interesting, but selective, details about the subject area in question at Beech Creek.
Evidently, TimberWest voluntarily informed PMFLC executive director Mr. Macpherson in a July 25, 2005 email “of a cutblock at Beech Creek”, wherein “a reserve zone had not been left on one side of Beech Creek” (page 1) by its logging contractor. Mr. Macpherson then contacted TimberWest’s Manager of Forestry Programs, John Philips, leaving Mr. Philips with ample freedom to contact Mr. Macpherson at a later “suitable date” “once (the company’s) operations had been
completed.” A copy of the email was not appended in Mr. Macpherson’s report.
Mr. Macpherson finally “completed inspection of the site” some four months later on November 17, 2005, on a helicopter flight with Mr. Philips over the infraction area above Beech Creek. However, Mr. Macpherson failed to describe or make specific reference to the area of violation in the summary of his inspection, only citing the “riparian buffer” that “had been left on one side along one section of Beech Creek” (page one). What is extremely odd is that Mr. Macpherson does not
describe or refer to the violation area in question, the “reserve zone” reference by Mr. Philips in his earlier email. Mr. Macpherson simply states “that I did not observe any environmental harm and that TimberWest would have to apply for variance to Council”. In other words, in Mr. Macpherson’s extremely vague accounting, he makes no remarks to the violation area in question
and then simply excuses TimberWest of any possible contraventions under the Private Managed Forest Council Regulation. Again, a copy of the evidence, this time Mr. Macpherson’s “inspection file”, was not appended to his July 23, 2007 report.
Then Mr. Macpherson states, based on Mr. Hamilton’s Block Assessment Report, that “it appears the owner has contravened section 18 of the Private Managed Forest Land Council Regulation as during harvesting sufficient trees along a 200 m section on one side of Beech Creek were not retained” (page 2). Because Mr. Macpherson’s November 2005 inspection file is not attached, the
public has no idea of why this contradictory inspection incident was left in dormancy until the public complaint of May 21, 2007, and the consequent Determination of the PMFLC in September
2007.

coninued under Part 2