EDITORS NOTE:The following is the transcript referenced in the letter above

TRANSCRIPT (Wednesday morning, January 28, 2009)

Abbreviations
WK - Will Koop, B.C. Tap Water Alliance Coordinator

MS - Ministry of Forests appointed staff (kept anonymous)

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WK - The other big thing, of course, as you know from reading the letter, is the status of the Arrow Creek watershed as a Watershed Reserve under the Land Act.

MS - Yes. We are fully aware of that. I'm fully aware that basically that the Community Forest area overlaps three or four community watersheds. Howeveraccording to the legislation the harvesting can occur in the
community watersheds.

WK - You mean in the Watershed Reserve?

MS - Watershed Reserves. I'm not one hundred percent sure.

WK - You know that it is a Watershed Reserve.

MS - Actually, no. I didn't read anything in the application that the area overlaps a Reserve area, a Watershed Reserve.

WK - This should be on your Forest Atlas Map, or a Land Survey Map.

MS - Can you hold for a second, I just want to take the Exhibit "A" Map, so there should be something on the Exhibit "A" Map. I can go to the computer and check that.

WK - We know that it is a Watershed Reserve. We've done the research on the history of this watershed. I have all kinds of documents from both the Ministry of Environment and Ministry ofForests. I have old Forest Atlas Maps, I have recent Forest Atlas Maps, I
have Legal Survey Maps that show this as a Watershed Reserve. So what we are
concerned about, as we state at the end of the first page, is when the Land Use planning process happened in the early 1990s, they ignored the Watershed Reserve status for Arrow Creek.

MS - I think there was a proposal to reserve the Arrow Creek area. However, the area was not selected as a Park.

WK - No, no, no, no. At that time Arrow Creek was a Watershed Reserve under the Land Act.

MS - In the 90's.

WK - Oh yes. It's been a Watershed Reserve for a very long time. They ignored the status of that watershed as a Watershed Reserve as they ignored the status of Watershed Reserves under many community watersheds within the Regional area Land Use planning process. That's the point that we are making
at the end of that page.

So, what we want - of course we've said this in the book that I've written about these Watershed Reserves - is that we want some kind of statement about why this was done.

And secondly, the Forest Practices Code Act, and this is part of what I have written on the second page, ignored the status of this as a Watershed Reserve. And, we understand from our research, of what these Watershed
Reserves are, and what their intentions are. They are the same as Ecological Reserves - under the same Act.

MS - Basically, there would be no harvesting.

WK - That is absolutely correct. So, this is the reason I am writing this letter to the Minister.

MS - Does this mean at this time that the area is still a Watershed Reserve? I believe that would be the critical question.

WK - It is still a Watershed Reserve, as far as we understand.

MS - Under the Land Act. So, then I need to talk to the District staff to check the status of Arrow Creek. I can get that information for sure.

WK - In our recent report, which is on our website, which looks at the history of Rossland City's drinking watersheds, which are Watershed Reserves, we obtained files which state very matter-of-factly what these
Watershed Reserves are intended for. And, all of the older Forest Atlas Maps there was always this proviso, this italicized proviso, No Timber Sales.

What we have done, just to let you know what our research has shown, is in the book that we wrote almost three years ago, called From Wisdom to Tyranny: A History of British Columbia's Drinking Watershed Reserves, is
that the Chief Forester, we have the correspondence files from the early 1960s, is he at that time wanted to ignore what the Lands Service was saying, that there is No Timber Sales. They basically overrode what the legislation said.
So, they wanted to log in protected drinking watersheds, no matter what.. So this has been going on for quite a long time, logging in places where the Ministry of Forests is not supposed to be logging. And, because it was being done in an underhanded and kind-of secret way, is that it has been very difficult to redress this situation. So what we are doing in this letter is once again stating what the problems are, and that the government has to
face this. So, the legislation is very clear on what should not have occurred in this place, but it is occurring anyway. So, it's been a long
term controversial trend, and that we are trying to steer the government back into the position where they honour what the
legislation is supposed to be all about..

So what we see about this whole problem about logging in Arrow Creek stems
[underline emphasis] from the Land Use Planning processes in the early 1990s
for the Kootenay-Boundary Land Use plans, and secondly, the Forest Practices Code Act.. The problem is there is no acknowledgement in the Boundary Land Use plan, in the Forest Practices Code Act, or in subsequent
documents following that, that this is a Watershed Reserve.

MS - So does this mean that officially that is not a Watershed Reserve? Is there any mentioning in the Higher Level Plans?

WK - I am telling you it has been ignored.

MS - It's being ignored.

WK - It's being ignored.

MS - I know the history of the Land Use Plan that covered that area, but it was approved when, recently?

WK - We did an investigation, and we looked at all of the Land Use Plans - that's the Caribou-Chilcotin, the Boundary East and West Land Use Plans, the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, and then the sub-regional planning
processes, the LRMPs. We looked at all of them. And, guess what they have in common? They ignored the Watershed Reserves throughout British Columbia.

MS - How come nobody ruled that issue at the time. Because LRMP process is basically the process where all the parties should be involved, and all the comments should be considered, and all the suggestions - it's a pretty lengthy process where all interested parties are taking part in putting their input into the LRMP.

WK - We did an analysis of this, which is discussed in Chapter 8 of the book I did. So, all of these Regional and Sub-Regional planning processes there was a legal requirement for the government to bring all the information on the table. But they didn't do that. So the reason that wasn't being done is because of some early scandals that happened in the early 1980s with the Ministry of Forests. This whole thing is about ignoring the Watershed
Reserves.

MS - I'm not really familiar, I didn't go into the details, basically, regarding that Watershed Reserve. But my question is, is Arrow Creek still a Watershed Reserve under the Land Act, or it's not?

WK - It's still an active status.

MS - So, I will have to check that. If it does, it will probably be a different story. However, there is no information in the Application.

WK - That's correct.

MS - . I am not one hundred percent sure about that Arrow Creek area, but I believe it was part of the management area. And, actually, I think that I am going to check the status of this Arrow Creek Watershed Reserve to see if it is still protected.

WK - Could you let me know what you find out?

MS - Absolutely, I will. However, just to let you know, in the case that it is not, that means that we didn't do anything wrong. I mean, from the legal perspective. I fully understand your concerns. However, when we are doing this, when we are wording the Community Forest Agreement, we are basically checking all the current legislation, everything should be consistent with
the current legislation. And, it seems to me that what we checked so far regarding the Creston Community Forest Agreement that everything was done according to the legislation. However, I didn't know, to be honest, I didn't know about this active status of this Arrow Creek Reserve, and I will have
to check that..

WK - There is another report we have on our website that goes into the Watershed Reserve history for Chapman Creek on the Sunshine Coast, which is also a Community Forest application. And, just to let you know, I did a
report, it's about one hundred pages, it's called the Community Forest Trojan Horse. And the Ministry of Forests, the government was aware that it was an active Watershed Reserve status, but that status was, as in this one, ignored completely, as with all the others. So, this is an old trend, an old
controversial trend..

MS - Just to let you know, what I talked to you about, I will have to provide a brief summary of what I talked to you about, and I have to make the recommendation should the letter be sent to you signed by the Minister
or you are basically satisfied with what we've talked about. I guess you indicated at the beginning that you would like to receive a written response from the Minister.

WK - On the points that we made. When you get a hold of the book, just look on page 113. There's an old Forest Atlas Map of Arrow Creek, and it shows three protection designations.

MS - How old is that map?

WK - From the early 1940s.

MS - That was quite a long time ago. Is that still applicable?

WK - I'm just telling you. This is the legacy in British Columbia. This is part of the scandal of what is going on now. You see, the policy and the legislation protected the public's drinking watershed sources. The forest industry didn't like that. In the United States there were over three thousand protected watersheds, in community watersheds. That changed in the
early 1960s. And when they started changing it over there, they started changing it over here. And, there's a lot of interesting cases.
For instance. Portland City's watershed, the Bull Run Watershed Reserve, which is an old federally-protected watershed that goes back to 1892. The [U.S.] Forest Service went in there in the late 1950s illegally - illegally
went in there. And, this ended up in a court case, and the judge said in 1976 that the Forest Service acted illegally. You see, this stuff has been going on all over the place. They just want to get after the timber. It
doesn't matter, so they ignore all these things.

So, if you go to page 113 of the book, there are three separate protections.


1.. . One is a Game Reserve, where there is no hunting allowed in the entire watershed.


2.. . The second is a Health District which prevents people from accessing the watershed, they cannot go within the boundaries of it.


3.. . And third, it's a Watershed Reserve, where there's no logging allowed.

They had three, separate protections. So it's all on that old Forest Atlas Map.