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Mr. Horgan, rein in BCTS

Editor: This letter was sent to B.C. Premier John Horgan. BC Timber Sales (BCTS) is out of control. There have been concerns about BCTS for years and we had hoped that with the NDP forming government, more oversight and control would be put on BCTS.

Editor:

This letter was sent to B.C. Premier John Horgan.

BC Timber Sales (BCTS) is out of control. There have been concerns about BCTS for years and we had hoped that with the NDP forming government, more oversight and control would be put on BCTS. Clearly this has not occurred.

We are disappointed and disgusted with your “business as usual” approach to BCTS. Given the climate emergency we are in, now is not the time to be clear-cutting old growth forests as fast as possible.

A case in point will illustrate our position. Dakota Creek, located west of Port Mellon on Howe Sound, is a designated community watershed under the Forest and Range Practices Act. It became a community watershed in 1995 when the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) gained a water licence on the creek. They applied for this watershed status to protect the creek from sediment sources caused by landslides that could be triggered by industrial activities. The SCRD intends for this watershed to provide potable drinking water to the Langdale area. The watershed has been logged in the past but that ceased in 2000 when it was determined that the watershed was hydrologically unstable. BCTS is now proposing cutting up to 143 hectares of old growth in the watershed claiming that it is now hydrologically stable. This is clearly untrue as shown by the October 2014 washout of the bridge over Dakota Creek on the Port Mellon Highway, followed by three flash flood damage events in 2016.

We are demanding that your government put an immediate moratorium on all old growth logging on public lands controlled by BCTS and that you completely overhaul BCTS. You must change the mindset of the organization so that conservation of our old growth heritage is uppermost in the organization’s mandate.

Norm and Loni Funnell, Roberts Creek