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Letters: The logging costs far outweigh the benefits

'Timber revenues from logging pale in comparison to the $9 million and counting for road repairs that the taxpayer is on the hook for'  
N.Clack flood. submitted
Clack Creek washed away part of Day Road in Roberts Creek after the water pushed two culverts downstream during the mid-November atmospheric river.

Editor: 

The Coast Reporter article dated Nov. 18, “Atmospheric River Repairs still under way on the Sunshine Coast one year later,” it says that the Ministry of Transportation has spent $9 million so far repairing damages to roads by the catastrophic (complete loss) of road pavement and their corresponding culverts that creeks must cross under. Have you ever considered how much force it takes to completely remove a culvert from its anchor under a road? It takes an enormous force of water to undo that amount of engineering and it’s a frightening thing to behold.  

To fully appreciate the magnitude of the problem this area faced during that short timeframe (Nov. 13-15, 2021) consider that the following six road locations and associated culverts were lost.1: Lower Rd at Stephen’s Creek, 2-3: Day Road at both Clack Creek and Gough Creek, 4: Beach Ave at Flume Creek, 5: Redrooffs Road at Kenyon Creek and 6: a forest service road near the Coast Gravity Park where a landslide took out the culvert and road. We were lucky there was no loss of life, unlike at the Duffy Lake Road where five people were killed by similar types of extreme water events caused both by heavy rain and changing forest cover conditions adjacent to water channels.  

Our organization checked the local forestry cover maps and discovered that in all of the above creeks clearcut logging and roadbuilding occurred in the “headwaters” of these creeks. It’s no coincidence that these particular creeks had “peak flows” when knowing that the conditions of their headwaters had been stripped of the trees. The take-away: Ban all logging and roadbuilding of intact forested slopes above community infrastructure. We all know that timber revenues from logging pale in comparison to the $9 million and counting for road repairs that the taxpayer is on the hook for.  

Ross Muirhead 

Elphinstone Logging Focus