Sunday August 26, 2007

LOGGING COMPANIES AND MUNICIPALITIES SQUARE OFF

This week saw two major organizations B.C.'s forest industry and its municipal governments closely watching a meaningless court hearing in Vancouver. It was meaningless because well, first I need to fill in some background.
Under B.C.'s somewhat convoluted system of government, municipalities are responsible for such matters as the purity of their water supply. But the provincial government retains authority over industrial activities. Along B.C.'s Sunshine Coast, some 23,000 people from Langdale to Earl's Cove depend on the waters of Chapman Creek for their water. Western Forest Products has a provincial license to log that watershed.
It's not a large logging operation, a 47 hectare patch in a 7,300 hectare watershed. But logging has caused problems for water systems elsewhere. Port Alberni is contesting logging rights in Beaver Creek, where high silt levels have forced a boil-water order for 2,000 people. Across the province, there are more than 200 boil-water advisories, many because of turbidity.

FORCING THE ISSUE
Regional districts cannot regulate logging beyond their boundaries. But health boards can. So the regional district used a provision of the B.C. Health Act to constitute itself as a health board. It ordered Western Forest Products to stop work on slopes greater than 60 degrees. It also halved the amount of rainfall permitted before the company had to halt any road-building. The order, as I read it, would have had limited effect on WFP's operations. It permitted them to remove trees already cut or prepared for removal by helicopter. B.C.'s Forest Practices Code already regulates logging next to creeks. And a 60 degree slope? During my brief career in forestry, the professional forester in charge treated 60 degrees as inaccessible. A 60-degree slope rises two meters for every meter forward. It is, for all practical purposes, a cliff. But Western Forest Products immediately stopped all work, and appealed the legality of the ruling to the B.C. Supreme Court. In the meantime, the company asked the court to stay the district's order. WFP claimed economic urgency. Their license requires them to harvest $2 million worth of timber by April 2008, or face stiff fines. But they could have continued logging anyway. So money is not the point. The precedent is. If they meekly complied, they might set a precedent that would permit local governments to regulate any activity in their watersheds.

DIFFERENT ISSUE, SAME PROBLEM Here in Lake Country, for example, the issue is not logging but property ownership. Lake Country's watershed lies outside its municipal boundaries.
The water comes from a chain of lakes, Beaver, Crooked, Deer, Island, and Dee Lakes high in the hills, where the provincial government has leased crown land to about 50 cottagers and two resorts. So far, those habitations have not noticeably affected the quality of our drinking water. But what happens when there are more? The cottage owners have formed an association to lobby for getting their leases converted into full ownership. Again, two levels of government have different priorities. As population in the valley grows, Lake Country will need more water, which will mean raising water levels in the lakes for storage "twenty or thirty years from now". Water Manager, Jack Allingham asks, "will we have to buy back those
properties?" Currently, only Vancouver and Victoria fully control their water sources. Vancouver has a 999 year lease on its watersheds. No one gets in. Not even the provincial government, which would find it much easier to build a brand new highway to the 2010 Winter Olympics through the Capilano River valley than to upgrade the Sea-to-Sky Highway along Howe Sound. Victoria just bought another 10,000 hectares of land to protect its water supply. Smaller communities lack such protection. If Lake Country expanded its boundaries, for example, it would also have to absorb the costs of roads and policing which means smaller municipalities must plead with an often unresponsive provincial government.

LEGAL SHADOW BOXING
Western Forest Products applied to the court for a stay on Wednesday. It was granted on Friday. Justice Bruce Butler allowed Western Forest Products to continue road-building, to resume logging on gentle slopes, and to remove trees already cut or waiting to be extracted by helicopter.
But he upheld the ban on logging the steepest slopes, which allowed the regional district to celebrate a partial victory. In other words, nothing changed. That's what makes this stage of the process almost meaningless. In such cases, courts will almost invariable support the status quo. Anything else would pre-judge the validity of the appeal to the Supreme Court, to be heard in full in September. Although the immediate result was wholly predictable, the case continues to be closely watched. If the Sunshine Coast action is eventually ruled valid, municipalities all over the province could take similar action.

HIGH STAKES
"This is going to open up a huge can of worms," said environmental lawyer Andrew Gage. Vancouver bragged for years that its tap water was as pure as distilled water. I still recall my sense of shock the first time a gas station attendant casually topped up my battery from a garden hose. That's what happens when you have control over the headwaters. But once water has been affected by logging, by agriculture, by recreational use no amount of treatment can restore that purity. Treatment plants can, at best, counteract harmful elements with chemicals and filters. They can no more make water pure again than a court order can restore virginity. That's why municipalities and forestry companies will continue to watch this case with such interest. "This is history setting" agreed Sunshine Coast Regional District chair Ed Steeves. We're pioneers
here. A win for Sunshine Coast, however unlikely that may seem right now, would alter the legal landscape of the entire province.

Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor.