Editor:
Like most Coast residents, I was shocked by the extent of the recent floods and washouts on our roads. When I read about the washouts on Redrooffs Road and Lower Road and the collapse of the ravine at Whitaker Creek (which swamped two cabins), and when I saw the incredible video of the Clack Creek blowout [youtu.be/rTfp69ya3JQ], it was clear to me that every one of these disasters occurred downslope of forests that had recently been logged.
Ross Muirhead’s Nov. 26 letter (“Seeing the cost of logging”) described how current logging of the Trout Lake forest precipitated the Redrooffs Road washout. Also, the forest above Clack Creek was just logged in 2019.
No doubt, there’s more than one cause for the recent floods and washouts. But certainly, removal of the forests upslope of them was one of the causes. Forests play a vital role in retaining rainwater and keeping the hillsides from washing out.
Here on the Sunshine Coast, unfortunately, we have to constantly battle our own government to keep us safe from natural disasters. In Elphinstone, the residents have to battle year after year to forestall logging of the Reed Road Forest, which slopes down literally to their doorsteps. Last week, 19 people and I had the privilege of hiking through a magnificent old forest above Wilson Creek. Tragically, that forest, too, is now slated to be logged.
When I see that logging has resumed and trucks are once again hauling logs along Highway 101, I have to ask myself, “Why would our government continue to put us at risk?” Were the recent floods and washouts not the tipping point? Surely, in this “state of emergency,” one of our government’s emergency measures must be to suspend all permits for logging in the forests above our communities.
Robert O’Neill
