Elliott Anderson Christian Trozzo's Recent Story

by Stephan Martineau & Miriam Mason Martineau

Residents of the EACT drainage have worked for over 16 years to protect the quantity, quality and timing of flow of their watershed. In 1981 they joined efforts with other similar groups throughout the Slocan Valley to form the Slocan Valley Watershed Alliance. The EACT watershed group is made up of residents who, like ourselves, have spent literally thousands of volunteer hours educating themselves on the issue, writing letters, attending countless meetings, writing reports, and organizing. our neighborhoods so as to reach a consensus on what may be appropriate in relation to potential development of our backyards. This has all been done in order to protect our water sources, the habitat and biodiversity that we have come to love and depend on for our sustenance. In addition we aim to gain recognition that pure, uncontaminated water flow from forest creeks is a rare and irreplaceable resource on this planet. WATER IS LIFE! Ever since the beginning of the eighties, residents of the EACT watershed have been actively involved in numerous procedures with government to ensure that these domestic use water supplies will not be adversely affected by human activities. Such processes have proven to be both time consuming and frustrating.

In summary, those involved have become more knowledgeable on the issue at hand, and the EACT Watershed Committee has virtually gained unanimous support from the EACT water users. We are very concerned about the proposed activities in our backyard. The shelving of the Slocan Valley Development Guidelines by government and industry during the mid-nineteen eighties, the disappearance of the Special Management Zones and guidelines of the mid-nineteen nineties, and the latest changes to the already weak Forest Practices Code do not encourage confidence in the aims and work of government and corporations. The endless and often fruitless paper "back and forth" is only a small part in the uneasiness felt by water users. The increasing number of landslides in the valley (28 since March 1997), the construction of roads into sensitive headwaters without bridges or even culverts (e.g. Perry Ridge case), the bulldozing over community concerns (summer 1997), the knowledge that the Slocan Valley in its unaltered state is already very sensitive and that our government continuously refuses to engage in meaningful, open, science-based discussion, with a willingness to move beyond the status quo into a new, crucially needed phase in forest practices in British Columbia, raises alarm and disappointment amongst numerous valley residents. The history of the past has brought us to a time when we stand on the brink of activities in our watershed commencing, before numerous serious concerns have been adequately addressed. These are concerns, that we; as British Columbians, legitimately claim.