The July Creek Ratepayers Association (the complainant) expressed its concerns about arsenic to the Ministry of Forests (MOF) Boundary Forest District at a meeting in 1998. The district manager ordered a watershed assessment for July Creek. A representative of the association participated on a watershed advisory committee that oversaw the watershed assessment. The assessment was completed in November 1999, and did not identify any significant hydrological concerns for the proposed cutblocks or road-building within the assessment area.
Pope and Talbot Ltd.’s (the licensee) 1999 forest development plan (FDP) was approved shortly after, in December 1999. However, cutblocks planned within the July Creek watershed were changed from category A (for approval) status to category I (for information only) status prior to the plan approval because the watershed assessment was not available during the review and comment period.
In September 2000, the Golden branch of the East Kootenay Environmental Society complained to the Forest Practices Board about a proposed logging road across the Cummins River on the east side of Kinbasket Reservoir in the Columbia Forest District. The complainant asserted that the road will allow a timber transfer to Revelstoke, benefiting that community over Golden, and that the road will have a destructive effect on mountain caribou and grizzly bear populations of the area. Further, the complainant was concerned that the forest development plan (FDP) review and comment process was unfair. The complainant suggested that moving the wood by barge on Kinbasket Reservoir might be in the Crown’s best economic and ecological interests.
In May 2000, the Concerned Residents of Sheep Creek complained to the Board that logging had damaged the Lussier River watershed. The complaint concerns harvesting approved by the Ministry of Forests in 1998 in Coyote Creek and Nichol Creek, both tributaries of the Lussier River. The complainant asserted that: continued logging has worsened erosion of private and public lands; not enough timbered wildlife habitat has been retained; the forest development plan review and comment process was inadequate; and Ministry of Forests staff provided misleading information about the status of harvested areas in the watershed. Crestbrook Forest Industries Ltd. (the licensee), now Tembec Industries Inc. (Tembec), had not completed the approved harvesting by May 2000. The licensee’s intention to continue logging the approved cutblocks prompted the complaint.
On October 25, 2001, the Board received a complaint from a resident of the Moyie River valley, south of Cranbrook. The complainant’s 25-acre property is completely surrounded by Crown rangeland. The complainant holds a domestic water license that permits her to take up to 1500 gallons of water per day from Noke Creek.
According to the complainant, cattle defecate in and around Noke Creek and her water intake, polluting the water. The complainant is concerned about the health risks associated with drinking the water.
This is the Board’s report on a compliance audit of Forest Licence A20212, held by Tembec Industries Inc. (Tembec). Forest Licence A20212 was formerly held by Crestbrook Forest Industries Ltd. During the audit period Crestbrook Forest Industries Ltd. was amalgamated with Tembec. The operating area for this licence is located in mountainous terrain in the Kootenay Lake Forest District, primarily north of the city of Creston to the headwaters of the Goat River.
