Grand Forks residents concerned about the excessive logging of land near Lynch Creek by the British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS) met recently.
During the public meeting held by BCTS, residents gathered at the Brown Creek Community Hall to discuss their concerns about the area.
Resident Roy Schiesser pointed out that the area is one of the last places left for grizzly bears, goat and mule deer.
“Right now there’s virtually very little access to that area, which is great for grizzly, goat and mule deer because they’re not disturbed,” he said. “But if they push the road in, that would create access to the area and it will allow people who are currently entering the park even easier access to get into Gladstone Provincial Park. Our concern is that once a road is put into there, it won’t take long before someone decides to cut a trail in with his or her quads.”
George Edney, planning supervisor for BC Timber Sales, pointed out that there are two roads by Lynch Creek – one at the north side, called North Lynch, and the south side.
“We’re planning to do the south side for sure,” he said. “We’re going to build roads into the south side of Lynch Creek. The roads exist all the way in there but we’re going to upgrade part of it on the top end and we’re going to build some new roads in there.”
Edney noted that BCTS will be advertising for a road building contract soon.
Edney noted that while the north side is still being finalized, the south road plans to be complete by fall.
“On the south side, we’re going to finish our timber layout,” he said. “That’s still ongoing, so they’re looking at the blocks, identifying wildlife tree areas, trying to find the boundaries for where the blocks will be and that will be finalized before the snow falls, with the idea to put in the sales plan the next year or the year after.”
Edney believes it will be in the BCTS’ 2013/2014 sales plan.
Schiesser is disappointed that BCTS plans to continue with their decision.
“We are quite disappointed in this decision as it clearly shows a disregard for community involvement and more significantly, the indifference to wildlife and habitat,” he said.
Dave Talarico, another concerned resident, added that since the formation of the Gladstone and Granby Provincial Parks, logging to the Boundaries of these parks escalated significantly.
“We are concerned for the reason that Lynch Creek is one of the last untouched migratory routes and wildlife corridors left in the Granby valley where the Grizzly Bear can travel from alpine to the valley bottom without crossing logging roads or cut blocks,” Talarico said.
Talarico pointed out that there are currently no roads or cut blocks in this last remaining corridor of land that encompasses 3,200 hectares.
Edney, however, explained that there are rules and regulations that must be considered before the BCTS approves anything.
“There is a ton of wildlife anywhere we go and in that area, there are government regulation on how to do that,” Edney explained. “We have management for white tail deer, mule deer and I think there’s some goat habitat on the north side. There’s a bunch of different ungulates that we have to manage under the government action regulations for ungulates.”
There is an action regulation in regards to grizzly bears, which informs BCTS of a number of measures that need to be put in place when the roads are being built or harvesting blocks to help conserve grizzly bears.
“We are aware of both of those and there are regulations and statutes that require us to follow them,” he said.
He added that a lot of planning and effort is put into these areas.
“It takes a long time into developing an area in terms of meeting a plan. It’s not something that happens overnight so this has been ongoing for a while,” he said. “There’s a lot of long-term planning that goes into these areas. People who don’t know this, are quite surprised by how much planning we do on these areas.”
Grand Forks is an area that relies on the forest industry and not everyone will be happy it is, concluded Edney.
