Local governments demand
control over water.
Jonathan Woodward
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Local governments across B.C. are gearing up for a struggle over who controls logging in their watersheds after the Sunshine Coast Regional District asserted new powers to protect its water supply.

Millions of hectares of Crown and private land could be regulated by local governments - as well as by the province - after the SCRD ordered Western Forest Products over the weekend to stop logging and building roads in the Chapman Creek Watershed, said environmental lawyer Andrew Gage.

"Water has been the major trigger point for municipalities over conflicts of logging in this province," said Gage. "This is going to open up a huge can of worms in B.C."

The Greater Vancouver and Capital regional districts have legal protection against logging in their watersheds in the form of provincial guarantees. But many smaller towns across B.C. have no such protection.

About 23,000 Sunshine Coast residents use the water from Chapman Creek, fed by the 7,300-hectare watershed. In early July, Western Forest Products started logging in the area, arguing it wouldn't affect the water quality.

Residents worried that the logging would destabilize the slopes and that after heavy rains, silt would overwhelm their water treatment plant. Residents led by Dan Bouman and guided by Gage filed a complaint with the regional district.

But under the Local Government Act, which governs the powers of most B.C. municipal and regional governments, the district did not have the power to order Western Forest Products to stop, said district chair Ed Steeves.

However, sitting as a local board of health, the directors of the regional government could - and did - use the powers granted to them under the Health Act to defend the water supply, said Steeves.

"This is history-setting," he said. "We're pioneers here on the West Coast."

Steeves said his community is growing and needs to protect its water supply. "We have that responsibility and we're carrying it out," he said.

Western Forest Products stopped logging on Aug. 3 while the district's hearing took place. Company spokesman Gary Ley said this is the first time his company has seen such an order.

"We'll take a look at the judgment and take a look at our options from there," he said.

The Ministry of Forests and Range is also reviewing the order, said a spokeswoman.

Other municipalities are sitting up and taking notice of the order, said Richard Taylor, executive director of the Union of B.C. Municipalities.

With more than 200 boil-water advisories in effect across B.C., many of them because of silt, water purity is a hot issue for the smaller towns, he said. "That certainly caught my eye."

In Port Alberni, civic officials and activists have contested the logging rights of Timberwest on steep slopes near Beaver Creek, where some 2,000 people have faced boil-water orders due to high silt content.

But so far the district has only complained to the provincial government, said district director Patty Edwards.

"We've felt pretty powerless," Edwards said. "If we could have this jurisdiction, that would be great."

Regional District of Central Kootenay director Andrew Shadrack said if a citizen made a health complaint, he would ask his district to follow the Sunshine Coast's example. And in Nanaimo, district chair Joe Stanhope said his staff was looking into how to use the ruling to protect their watershed.

"Water is crucial," he said. "We need to be able to ensure reasonable things are done to protect the forests."

Forestry companies have not yet challenged the decision in court but such a challenge would lead to a significant legal battle over the control of some 200 watersheds, said Gage.

A 2006 study cited in the Sunshine Coast order identified the hazards to the water supply from logging on steep slopes as "high."

"In particular, forestry activities on steep, unstable terrain with soils which are sensitive to disturbance contribute to drainage alteration, increased turbidity and sediment and changes in levels of organic carbons and pH," says the ruling, quoting the study.

Some of the forestry company's studies were contradictory and the company employed "insufficient fieldwork" to do them, says the study.

The forestry company was ordered to stop work on all slopes with grades of 60 per cent or more, and to cease building a logging road to those slopes.

The company was allowed to harvest trees that had already been knocked down or prepared for removal by helicopter in those areas.

But the district also lowered the rain-level measurement at which road-building must stop to 37 millimetres in a 24-hour period; previously it was 75 mm over 24 hours.

The company was also ordered to do water testing in the watershed.

jwoodwardpng.canwest.com