Editor:
We are alarmed to hear that as soon as July 1, 2023, BC Timber Sales plans to tender a logging contract for the upper Conrad, Pixton/Porter Roads area. It is the location of the headwaters of several creeks running through Roberts Creek.
One of the creeks which will be impacted is Leek Creek. Leek Creek runs to the sea alongside Conrad Road crossing under Lower Road at Camp Byng’s Rorison Trail. This creek has a long history of becoming a raging torrent in spring during snow melt as well as in the fall with traditional heavy rains. In the early 1980s, Leek Creek washed out Lower Road at Conrad Road, creating a 10-foot ravine where Rorison Trail once was. In the past 20 years, the creek has become somewhat more stable as trees and forest vegetation, ferns and shrubs have regrown. Some remediation was also carried out by the Ministry of Highways.
Any logging in the areas above will undoubtedly upset the year-round streams that have only begun their recovery after the industrial logging of the 1970s and 1980s. The regional district has in the past objected to BC Timber Sales logging in Roberts Creek but unfortunately logging has still occurred where it should not have. We have already had parts of Lower Road closed due to washouts for weeks at Whittaker Creek and Stephen’s Creek. With global warming and the climate crisis, we cannot afford to lose more forest of any kind for any reason.
We are asking directors of the regional district to take whatever action is required to halt all logging in the headwaters and recognize them as the natural assets they are. BC Timber Sales is attempting to have the last remnants of undisturbed forest logged. We need the regional district to work with residents to permanently safeguard these remaining forests for the sake of residents’ properties, businesses, road infrastructure, community water and salmon spawning streams.
Charlene Penner, Roberts Creek
