As part of the Forest Practices Board's 2011 compliance audit program, the Board selected the Fort St. James District as the location for a full scope compliance audit. Within the district, the Board selected six woodlot licences for audit. The Board audited woodlot licences W0657, W0295, W1893, W1431, W1881 and W1888.
This is the audit report for woodlot licence W0657.
Safe drinking water is a critically important resource to the people of British Columbia. This audit set out to assess forest and range practices in relation to water quality and fish habitat in two Okanagan community watersheds – Vernon and Oyama Creek. To do this, auditors assessed compliance of forest and range practices with applicable legislated requirements, and the effectiveness of practices in protecting these values, from September 2008 through October 2010.
Auditors noted the efforts made by MFLNRO to address water quality concerns during the audit period. New and replacement range developments were being established but had not yet been completed. However, some problems with the new developments were identified, and auditors were not able to predict the efficacy of developments to be completed after the audit fieldwork.
Overall, the audit showed that range practices need continued improvement to meet legislative requirements and further reduce risks to water quality.
A rancher complained that, during the summers of 2009 and 2010, his ranch southwest of Williams Lake had run short of water. The complainant asserted that salvage logging upstream of the ranch had caused earlier, faster and greater runoff during spring, which removed water from the system, and ultimately led to summer water shortages. Mountain pine beetle attacked the pine-dominated watershed in the mid-2000s, killing much of the mature pine. Extensive salvage harvesting began in 2006.
The Board found that the reduced summer streamflows at the ranch were likely the result of depleted soil moisture and groundwater following a series of dry years, but salvage harvesting may have added to the problem by increasing the potential for accelerated runoff.
The findings of this audit are unique and do not represent the standard of forest practices usually identified through Board audits. The Board has conducted well over 100 compliance audits since 1996, including over 20 audits of BCTS operations, and has never previously encountered this level of non-compliance.The results show significant and pervasive findings of non-compliance with the Forest and Range Practices Act and two instances of non-compliance with the Wildfire Act.
Overall, BCTS-CR and eight individual timber sale licence holders each had at least one significant noncompliance finding, while several had multiple significant findings. Some of these timber sale licence holders operated on more than one timber sale and significant findings were identified with each timber sale. There were also concerns noted with respect to forest practices that are technically compliant, but are considered by the Board to be unsound.
The term NSR has been used by some to describe all of the forests where there might not be a ‘satisfactory’ number and type of trees. Areas harvested by the forest industry (including by the government-run BC Timber Sales program) meet these criteria for NSR because trees have been removed and there is a legal obligation to restock after harvesting. However, reduced timber supply caused by the mountain pine beetle is also something government must look at in terms of reforestation.
The investigation found that progress has been made in planning and implementing old-growth retention: thousands of old-growth management areas (OGMAs) have been established, and, in areas where OGMAs do not exist, specified amounts of old-growth forest must always be available.
The Board saw good examples of the professional reliance and Forest and Range Practices Act delegation models working – some licensees identify non-legal OGMAs in their forest stewardship plans, and conduct forest practices to protect those areas, even though they are not legally obligated to do so.
However, the investigation also highlighted some of the challenges licensees face in achieving old-growth retention on multi-tenured Crown forested land bases where some tenured users are required to maintain old-growth and others are not. The Board believes that old-growth retention requirements, as well as requirements for other values (e.g., wildlife habitat areas), should apply regardless of which industrial sector is developing the land.
In April 2011, a retired agrologist from Dawson Creek filed a complaint concerning the harvesting of mature aspen stands in the Peace River area.
Aspen stands naturally regenerate by suckering from live roots that remain after harvesting. However, within three to five years, regenerated aspen stands are so dense that they can become unusable for cattle grazing. Forage availability and grazing opportunities on areas harvested gradually starts to improve after 30 years of self-thinning.
The complainant stated that Louisiana Pacific Canada Ltd (LP) was not implementing recommended mitigation strategies contained in the Draft Guidelines for Timber and Range Mitigation and, as a result, the impact on many grazing tenures (including his own) in the South Peace area, and within LP’s operating area, was greater than it should be.
In May 2011, a resident of Meadow Creek, BC filed a complaint with the Forest Practices Board regarding the forestry practices of Meadow Creek Cedar Ltd. (MCC). The Board investigated and found that some of MCC’s roads, harvesting and silviculture activities did not comply with legislation.
In addition, some silviculture, protection and road construction practices were considered unsound. MCC did not implement recommendations provided in professional reports, including silviculture prescriptions and road engineering reports. This created unacceptable environmental and management risks, which, in the Board’s view, undermine public confidence in the industry and the professionals who work in it. MCC ’s allowable annual cut accounts for just 0.1 percent of the total provincial cut, therefore,the findings of this investigation should not be considered indicative of the forest industry.
In its ongoing audits and investigations the Board rarely finds licensees who do not strive to comply with the law and when it does, the licensee nearly always brings its forest practices into compliance.
In September 2010, Batnuni Lake Guides and Outfitters (the complainant) submitted a complaint to the Forest Practices Board that L&M Lumber Co. Ltd. (the licensee) was not seasonally-blocking motorized access to the road system in their Davidson Creek operating area (the Davidson). This caused the complainant to lose a key business opportunity guiding hunters by horse in a non-motorized area.
Since 1994, when not being used for industrial purposes, the Davidson road system has been closed every winter to motorized use by putting concrete barriers in front of the bridge at the start of the road. In 1997, the Vanderhoof Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP)formalized this practice by designating access into the Davidson as ‘semi-primitive, nonmotorized’(SPNM), and specifying that recreationalists, including hunters, could not use vehicles in the area between April 1 and November 30 each year.
In the spring of 2011, water from a trough located above Gilpin Creek, on the Overton-Moody Range Unit near Grand Forks, was released onto an unstable slope. The ground was saturated and a debris slide occurred, sending a significant amount of soil into Gilpin Creek. A local guide-outfitter found the slide and complained to the Forest Practices Board about the location and operation of that trough. The complainant was also concerned that some new fencing, built to block cattle access to the creek, was not wildlife friendly and that it posed a potential danger to deer and wild sheep.
