From May 1998 to December 1999, I investigated 34 landslides, new avalanches and debris torrents in the West Kootenays. Twenty-eight of these events (82%) occurred just below logging roads and/or clearcuts, and in 11 cases, the logging/roads had been done under the British Columbia Forest Practices Code. This suggests that clearcuts and logging roads make a large increase in the likelihood of a landslide.

The 82% figure is not out of keeping with what scientific studies have shown elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Lawyer/forest ecologist Doug Heiken compiled date from 22 scientific studies which inventoried the relative rate of landslides from intact forest versus clearcuts and logging roads. Clearcuts exhibit landslide rates up to 20 times higher than forested areas, with the average being 13 times. Logging roads exhibited rates of landslide up to 300 times higher than intact forest, with the average being 210 times. (Heiken, 1997).

One of the deceptive things about risk assesments is they make us feel we can predict where a landslide might take place, and naturally we think that's in the high hazard areas. But some devastating ones have started on moderate terrain and can travel a considerable distance over low-gradient terrain. We're given to believe that various road engineering techniques would prevent slides on such terrain. However, several of my field inspections show that roads built under the Forest Practices Code have caused landslides on low and moderate terrain. In these cases, the companies did not install the required culverts. It is important to note that fines levied by the MOF (Ministry of Forests) for companies' noncompliance with engineering plans are so small as to be ineffective.

When the terrain is steep, unstable and wet, even installing all the prescribed culverts may not be enough to maintain natural drainage. Whether a road should be built at all is something the Forest Practices Code does not even consider.

Road placement is another key issue that's ignored. The MOF still permits stacking road switchbacks and cutblocks on a slope. According to the hydrologists I've talked to, this kind of construction on steep, unstable slopes is a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, no matter how well a road is built, there is still the problem of maintaining it. It only takes one blocked culvert to start a landslide.

"In one area in North Idaho this past spring there were over 3,000 mass failures on roads which were built to higher standards than I have seen in BC. Most of these failures were on roads where the soil and water specialists recommended aginst construction, but the engineers thought they could overcome any obstacle with additional construction techniques like 'specialty road construction'"