A critical deadline looms for the troubled Meadow Creek Cedar forest license.
By March 31, all obligations except actual planting of trees must be met, otherwise the province could again issue a cancellation notice.
The license, suspended in November for the second time since 2012, was on the brink of being cancelled last year when owner Dale Kooner worked out a deal to sell it to San Group of Surrey. The company paid off $150,000 in accrued debts and “substantially met” a remediation order.
Rural Kaslo regional director Aimee Watson, who met with district forest manager Garth Wiggill last month and summarized the discussion in a Facebook post, said the province must show due diligence in allowing for remediation. Providing a timeline to address infractions is required by law.
The deadline to plant trees is the end of next year.
While the license suspension prevents logging, outstanding debts to the province and silviculture requirements must still be met. Logs in the mill yard at Cooper Creek can be sold and used to pay off debts to the province.
However, in an interview this week Watson said she is dismayed the province can’t legally require debts be paid to contractors, who are left to place liens on the company’s assets or go to small claims court.
“Knowing all the assets go to clear debts with the Crown is contentious, since many contractors and local people are out of money and out of a job,” she said. “The Crown gets it first and it goes into general revenue. None of that will come back to the community.”
The Meadow Creek license would normally allow a harvest of 96,000 cubic meters per year, or 480,000 cubic meters over five years. However, the majority has not been logged, resulting in an undercut that the government could potentially transfer to other companies.
Some have already inquired, Watson said, but she’s asking MLA Michelle Mungall to lobby the province not to approve any transfers to companies outside the area, as it might jeopardize the chances of restarting a sawmill in the Lardeau Valley.
The former Meadow Creek Cedar mill at Cooper Creek burned last November, throwing 18 people out of work. Since then, Watson said many people and businesses have donated money, gas, and food. An account at Kootenay Savings in Kaslo has raised several thousand dollars, which is being distributed in $100 vouchers.
Watson said the license isn’t legally tied to the mill, so it could be sold and the mill not rebuilt. “The mill’s future viability is closely tied to timber within the license area,” she said. “Local control is likely necessary to ensure the mill re-opens.”
If another licensee buys the quota, she worries the wood would go to other mills, leaving no reason for one in the Lardeau Valley, “no ability to reinvigorate it and have employment again, and not much economic return.”
Watson also said the license’s sale to San Group has fallen through and that owner Dale Kooner has hired an asset manager to help bring the company back into good standing. “The assumption is that the business, both mill and license, will be for sale,” she said.
However, San Group could not confirm any of those statements this week.
Watson said Wiggill was “very forthcoming and willing to work with the region. He wants to see a change there. He did everything he could and is working to the best of his ability within constraints of the legislation.”
However, Watson said that legislation “lacks teeth” from community and environmental perspectives and gives tenure holders too much room to commit infractions before being held accountable.
“We’ve seen Meadow Creek Cedar devastate the community and surrounding land. Yet they get to go through another process of trying to make amends.”
