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Devine residents, regional district at odds with watershed logging

Trouble is brewing on the forested mountain slopes above the bucolic hamlet of Devine, about 40 kilometres northeast of Pemberton.

Trouble is brewing on the forested mountain slopes above the bucolic hamlet of Devine, about 40 kilometres northeast of Pemberton.

The community’s drinking water supply, which is taken from Spruce Creek, is in danger of being contaminated by logging.

"We have pretty good water here right now," said Russell Mack, a six-year resident who looks after the community water system. "But I didn’t move here to have a clearcut in my backyard."

According to Mack, logging in the watershed has been an ongoing issue.

"There haven’t been any real problems yet but there needs to be the proper safeguards," he said, noting that the Ministry of Forests has previously approved logging in the watershed to reduce the fire hazard.

Mack also said a logging road that crosses the creek near the community’s drinking water intake exposes local residents to further health risks.

"I’m not opposed to the forest industry but that area needs to be secure," he said in an interview from his home. "There was a slide from an old road which increased sedimentation in the water."

According to the Ministry of Forests, the Spruce Creek watershed is a multiple-use area where logging and road building can occur.

Each of these activities can increase the risk of parasites, such as cryptosporidium and giardia , entering the water system.

Seven people died in Walkerton, Ont., last year after the town's water was contaminated. Last month, in North Battleford, Sask., hundreds of people became ill after they drank water containing cryptosporidium.

In the summer of 1996, as many as 17,000 people in two B.C. cities — Kelowna and Cranbrook — were overcome with flu-like symptoms due to water-borne parasites.

But the Ministry of Forests said, despite logging in the watershed, an outbreak is unlikely to happen in Devine.

"There has been very little disturbance compared to the size of the watershed," Julian Grzybowski, the MoF’s small business officer, said from his office in Squamish. "The potential for harvesting timber is still there."

However, no more logging will take place before a watershed assessment is completed, said Grzybowski.

The study is part of negotiations between the ministry and SLRD that is aimed at ensuring any forestry activities within the Spruce Creek watershed are mitigated and the quality of water is maintained.

But Andrew Reeder, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District’s utilities manager, dismissed Grzybowski’s claims and said logging in the watershed is a "real concern."

"The creek is the only source of water and it feeds straight into their taps," he said, adding that any type of logging activity could increase sedimentation and turbidity in the creek.

Reeder said Devine residents have "point blank" refused to have their drinking water disinfected with chlorine.

Even if the water was treated, chlorine is not as effective on turbid waters because the sediment protects parasites from the chemical.

"The effects of logging present a real problem," he said.

Monica Barabonoff, a public health officer with the Coast-Garibaldi Community Health Services Society, told Pique Newsmagazine that Devine’s drinking water system is under a constant boil advisory.

According to the watershed assessment study’s author, Jennifer Clarke of the Vancouver-based EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd., a preliminary draft of the watershed assessment proposes the selective harvesting of three cutblocks, totalling less than 10 hectares.

Clarke said two cutblocks, adding up to less than five hectares, were logged earlier this year.

The logging will take place in a woodlot owned by the N’Quat’qua First Nation, which is based in the nearby community of D’Arcy, 5 km up the road from Devine.

"We are very careful in the watershed and use selective harvest techniques," said N’Quat’qua band manager Ernest Armann.

D’Arcy, which also uses a creek for its drinking water supply, is under a constant boil advisory as well.

But a UBC professor says road building – not logging practices – in community watersheds is the real problem.

"Selective logging in a community watershed is OK if it is done in a benign manner," said Hans Schreier, a professor at the university’s Institute for Resources and Environment, who specializes in water resource management.

"The big concern is about the steepness of the watershed. Logging changes the hydrology of the area and increases sedimentation," he said. "Clearcuts can create all kinds of problems but roads create more runoff and landslides than logging."

Logging in watersheds is regulated by the Forest Practices Code, along with the provincial Health and Water Acts.

According to the FPC’s 1996 Community Watershed Guidebook , foresters have to plan for water quality monitoring, riparian management, terrain hazards, harvesting and cutblock size, road engineering, fire protection and suppression and recreation access and activities.

There also needs to be a contingency plan in case of damage from logging.

More recently, the B.C. government tabled new legislation that includes tougher regulations and standards to protect drinking water, but the bill has yet to pass.

Part of the proposed Drinking Water Protection Act includes the possibility of bringing community watersheds under the control of local governments.

"Right now, we have no choice on whether or not to allow logging. It’s up to the Minsitry of Forests and – as a local government – that’s very frustrating," said the SLRD’s Reeder "The new legislation will give us a choice."

Regional districts in both Victoria and Greater Vancouver (areas that contain more than half of the province’s 4-million residents) have control over their own watersheds and do not allow any logging, while the Sunshine Coast Regional District recently held a referendum in order to get control of its watershed from the province.

Meanwhile, Vancouver-based environmental groups, such as the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation, advocate a no-logging stance in all of B.C.’s 450 community watersheds.

There are 23 community watersheds in the Soo Timber Supply Area, which cover 3.2 per cent of the timber-harvesting land base in a region that includes Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton along with Devine and D’Arcy.

Community watersheds represent only 1.5 per cent of B.C.’s total land base but 86 per cent of the province’s population draws its water supply from surface sources.

Perhaps Mack, who along with the rest of Devine’s residents will be affected the most by whatever happens, expresses it most concisely.

"If there are any problems," he said, "the community will be screwed."