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Province made this mess

Letters

Editor:

The Chapman watershed has been a site of conflict for 50 years. This watershed, our primary source of water, has been logged extensively. The park created at the headwaters was the only means of protection available to stop further logging in the high elevations. It was not a recreational initiative, it was a legal measure to prevent logging company access and ensure our water supply remained viable.

If you look at Google Earth you can see what happened to the valley downstream. It is now the site of landslides, regrowth of alder and stream degradation. This has certainly affected the quantity and quality of our water supply.

Our provincial government took stumpage fees from this shortsighted behavior and legislated that the flow of wood take precedence over our need for water. We have no direct control over industrial use of our own water supply. All solutions at this point will be very expensive and we will be told we need to pay for them through our local taxes.

Should infrastructure of this scale be funded this way, or should we be lobbying the province to fix what they have firmly controlled for the last 100 years? How do you feel about coughing up millions for a reservoir when a natural watershed would, at the very least, have buffered some the effects of drought?

I think it’s lobbying we need most right now; as local taxpayers we are an easy target. We have done nothing to create this outcome, nor did we have a hand in the watershed’s misuse. We will at some point, however, as our so-called community forest company is slated to log there in future years.

For now, let’s put the responsibility where it lies, with our province. Nicholas Simons, please find us $10 million for starters. You could try knocking on the door of the Ministry of Forests first. I’m sure they have all those stumpage fees collecting interest somewhere.

Gord Bell, Halfmoon Bay