Lumber firm takes 'untenable position' on Sunshine Coast to B.C. Supreme Court

Jonathan Woodward
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Sunshine Coast Regional District overstepped its bounds when it ordered a halt to logging in its watershed because it was deemed to be a health hazard, Western Forest Products lawyers said Tuesday.

WFP asked the B.C. Supreme Court to quash the order, and to put a stay on it while the case is heard so logging can proceed in the meantime.

If the district's order holds, the precedent could see local governments throughout B.C. gain sweeping new powers to protect their water supplies.

But WFP representative Duncan Kerr said the district's order was at loggerheads with provincial rules that allow logging to proceed, leaving the company with no place to go.

"We can't go forward; we can't stay where we are," said Kerr. "It's an untenable position."

The 7,300-hectare, thickly forested watershed of Chapman Creek provides drinking water to about 23,000 people on the Sunshine Coast, from Langdale to Earl's Cove.

The regional district claimed powers under the Health Act to restrict logging on a watershed's steep slopes and near creeks to protect its drinking water supply.

The district worried that silt unleashed from the destabilized slopes in a rainfall would contaminate its drinking water.

Until now, a local or regional government's only recourse was to complain to the provincial government. But if the district's order stands up, it could set a precedent for millions of hectares of forest land in 200 B.C. watersheds.

It's now a race against time for WFP, which said its licence requires it to log its quota in the Chapman Creek watershed before April 2008.

WFP said some $2 million worth of timber is at stake. The company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building roads in the area, and faces steep fines from the province if it does not log the timber it promised, said documents it filed with the court Tuesday.

Once snow starts to fall in the watershed, likely in October, WFP will have to suspend logging for the rest of the winter, company lawyer Gwendoline Allison said. But if the company wins a stay of the regional district's order, logging could proceed while the case is heard.

District lawyer Chris Murdy said that would allow the watershed slopes to be harvested despite the order.

"If the order is stayed, the appeal will be rendered moot, and the trees will still be cut," he said.

A Health Ministry representative said Tuesday that health issues are usually pursued through regional health authorities. But Andrew Gage of West Coast Environmental Law, whose client Dan Bouman filed the original health complaint with the district, said the district was following correct procedures under existing law.

"The laws were revised only a few years ago," he said.

Forestry analyst Kevin Mason said the company could be entitled to compensation if it can't log the watershed.

However, it was not clear whether or how much the provincial government or the regional district would have to pay Western Forest Products for the logs it could have harvested.

"There's a big precedent here that the government has to wrap its head around," Mason said. "This is a sizable legal test."

B.C.'s major population centres have already protected their watersheds. Greater Vancouver has a 999-year lease for its watersheds, and Victoria's Capital Regional District recently bought 10,000 hectares of watershed land from TimberWest Forest Corp.

Paul Fenwick of the Sunshine Coast Regional District said he couldn't comment on the case because it is before the courts.

The request to stay the order will be heard Aug. 21. No date has been set yet to hear WFP's appeal.

jwoodwardpng.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007