Editor’s Note: The following is an open letter to MLA Terry Lake:
Dear Dr. Lake:
BC Timber Sales is engaged in logging on the west side of the Clearwater River. The last block BCTS sold in the area was on July 10 of this year – well after the controversy of logging within the valley had started. No consultation was done with any of the stakeholders: residents, tourism operators, the Referral Group, Info Wells Gray, Tourism Wells Gray, or the community.
We are becoming exceedingly anxious as we hear the road-building across the valley. We don’t want this and some are wondering if we will have to resort to physical action and protest to draw attention to the crisis – at our own risk of potential arrest or violence.
Please use your influence to establish a moratorium on logging in the Clearwater Valley north of Spahats until the public and the community can have active input on all values, not just fibre. The negative impact of logging will be a visual reproach for the rest of our lives, not to mention the potential of even more serious issues, such as the flooding and washouts that resulted from previous ill-conceived logging.
Petrina Gregson
Upper Clearwater, B.C.
