A second wave of harvesting in the West Bragg Creek area has again sparked the flame of debate between stakeholders involved.
Spray Lake Sawmills (SLS), which recently completed a logging operation this past winter in the Bragg Creek area, will hold an open house May 8 to address what Gord Lehn, woodlands manager for SLS, said is an area just to the west of the Cochrane company’s last operation.
“Some of it is intended as a secondary fire containment line,” said Lehn. “This had already been included as part of the plans that were subject to public (and) government review last year.”
Some, however, are not pleased with the idea of more trees being cut down, and are not convinced that FireSmart is a genuine reason.
“Much of the next round of logging has nothing to do with protecting the area from wildfire, although the last effort at doing so was a joke,” said Peter Tucker, spokesperson for the advocacy group Sustain Kananaskis (SustainK). “This time, it is very clear that SLS wants to get as many trees out of the area while they can still operate in there.”
Tucker believes that SLS used FireSmart as an excuse to harvest the area, in addition to what he called fear-mongering, where the company claimed that jobs would be lost if the area could not be logged.
“Forest sections that were key to wildfire protection were not logged due to economic reasons,” he said, “putting the lie to that excuse.”
Tucker said that with SLS’s harvest plan, trails in West Bragg Creek have been protected, but the visual impact is ‘staggering.’
The Greater Bragg Creek Trails Association (GBCTA) is one user group in the area echoing that trail impacts have been minimized through the use of 50 metre buffers.
“There may be some visual impact on a landscape basis,” the organization said in an email, “but this has not yet been determined or discussed.”
Lehn said SLS has been working together with trail-user groups local to the area to make sure issues are dealt with properly.
“We have received some positive response in how well we were able to integrate the harvesting and trail use during last winter’s operations,” said Lehn.
Lehn added that the logging operation being proposed, which is slated to commence this fall, is part of SLS’s Forest Management Agreement with the Province of Alberta.
“It is being managed under an approved forest management plan within the context of a multiple-use framework,” said Lehn. “It is not zoned exclusively for recreation or any other kind of park or protected status.”
Lehn said SLS does its best to recognize important values in the area it operates, and find a balance with user groups in the area.
Tucker views the situation quite differently, however.
“There has been no balanced approach to managing the forest here and it makes me sick to see the logs piled up in SLS’s yard instead of in the forest,” he said.
The GBCTA has taken a different approach than that of SustainK on this second stint of harvesting, saying it has never been aligned with any anti-logging groups in the area and that it will continue to work within the West Bragg Creek Land Users Group (which SLS is a part of) and strive to minimize any impact the operation may have on recreation.
Tucker is asking for people to write the minister of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, Diana McQueen, local MLAs and Premier Alison Redford to demand the harvest plan be stopped until the release of the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP).
“If we begin now, there will be enough time, so the process must not be delayed,” urged Tucker. “We also plan to take a louder, less ‘reasonable’ approach, because frankly, enough is enough.”
The GBCTA said the majority of the trails impacted by SLS’s second phase of harvesting are built and maintained by the Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance and Moose Mountain Bike Trails Society. Two trails that will be impacted – Moose Loop and the partially built Merlin Loop – are maintained by the GBCTA.
Consultations are underway to develop a draft of a new SSRP. Visit landuse.alberta.ca for more information.
