Editor, the Times:
Thank you for publishing Trevor Goward's excellent article asking Canfor's CEO to rethink the plans that have been tabled for logging the western slope of Trophy Mountain (Heritage committee asks Canfor to rethink planning, Aug. 27 issue). I appreciate that Trevor is calling attention to the plight of the mountain caribou and to the Guiding Principles document that we hammered out over three years. We put our hearts and souls into that agreement with Ministry of Forests.
My concern is the health of the streams that flow from that mountainside, and of the wells at the base of the slope: I live on Grouse Creek, and I have a well. Everyone who followed the news about the Pritchard water wells after adjacent high-elevation logging will understand my concern. Yes, Canfor has promised a hydrological assessment of the area - but it doesn't take someone with an engineering degree to look at the steepness of that slope and realize that if the trees are removed, there will be nothing to hold back the water of spring snow-melt, or of any major rainstorm. Look at the three contiguous cut-blocks on the steep side-hill south of Grouse Creek - and then think of us who live downstream, many with water licenses on the creek. We do not want our beautiful clean stream to be like Fage Creek, victim of earlier logging higher up the slope: from mud-filled water roaring through in spring to not so much as a trickle of water in the rocks by the end of August. Please also consider the many little creeks that run through my neighbors' places. Some are fish-bearing, where the brook trout of Grouse Creek spawn.
I am cautiously optimistic, having read the letter Don Kayne, CEO of Canfor, wrote to the Vancouver Sun. I think Mr. Kayne should take part in some of the excellent Wells Gray World Heritage Year events that are planned. I am confident that he would then understand that this valley has far greater value as it stands than the few dollars that would be generated by logging the trees that line the valley walls.
I would also like to echo Trevor's request to the Honorable Terry Lake to establish a moratorium on industrial logging within the Upper Clearwater viewscape until the area has been carefully evaluated for its best and highest use.
Ellen Ferguson
Upper Clearwater, B.C.-