PRWUA Newsletter June 1 - 15, 1999

PRWUA Seeks Membership in Forest Stewardship Council

The Perry Ridge Water Users' Association has applied for membership in the Forest Stewardship Council (see letter from Marty Horswell else where in this newsletter) and want to be placed into the environmental chamber. The Association supports the aims and activities of FSC and its principles and criteria for forest stewardship. Its support for FSC's aims is based on the following actions: For over 20 years the Perry Ridge Water Users' Association has been representing the interests of water users through research and education. We advocate for the implementation of an Ecosystem-Based Plan for the entire Slocan Valley. Our goal is to maintain the quality, quantity and timing of flow of water supplies in consumptive-use water sheds.

The Board of Directors of the Perry Ridge Water Users' Association has made a formal commitment to work towards sustainable use forestry that protects all forest values - including social, economic and ecological values and to participate in fair processes.

North Shore Kootenay Lake

Water System Destroyed

The Bourke Creek Improvement District's water system, which supplies 34 homes at Nine Mile, had to be turned off after a landslide filled the creek above the water intake with debris. The landslide started at a switchback approximately eight kilometres up the Sitkum Creek Forest Service Road. Fifteen metres wide3 at the top, the slide ran about 600 metres to Bourke Creek and then another 200 to 300 metres down the creek channel.

"Our rate of flow has been reduced to a mere trickle of what it was," Joe Lintz, chair of the Bourke Creek Improvement District, said. Both the box and the dammed area where it is were full of silt. It will probably take months before the intake box can take water out of the creek again and even then there will probably be further problems every spring, Lintz has been told. "We're advised by ministry officials that we should be securing an intermediate term supply of water he said. "This event could take several months to flush itself down. What do you do? Drill a well.

"There is a concern about the possibility of having the debris in the creek come further down the channel. "It poses some risk, I understand, to public safety." Mr. Lintz stated. According to Dwain Boyer (one of the Government Engineers who worked on the Risk Assessment for Perry Ridge) stated that "It was the snow melt that did it." Mr. Boyer further explained that when snowmelt saturates an area the way it did near the slide after warm temperatures, the land is vulnerable to sliding.

Do Perry Ridge Water Users face this same fate from Forest Service Roads on Perry Ridge, if indeed snowmelt saturates road areas and cutblocks above our homes? Perry Ridge Water Users Association continues to work for prevention of this kind of dangerous event above our homes and destruction of our water boxes and dam areas as happened to the 34 homes on Kootenay Lake. Perry Ridge has similar steep wet glacial soils as where this slide occurred and where many of the landslides in the West Kootenay have occurred.

Letters

Forest Stewardship Council Certification

To the editor, Perry Ridge Newsletter,

Recently I have received a number of requests from the Slocan Valley for information about Forest Stewardship Council certification. Your readers may interested in FSC's relevance to watershed protection issues.

First let me describe what FSC is and how it works.

FSC is an international, non-government organization created for the purpose of implementing an independent, third-party certification system geared to enabling consumers in the marketplace to know that the wood-based products they purchase come from responsibly managed forests. To do this FSC has established a set of internationally applied principles and criteria for good forest stewardship. These principles and criteria cover the full range of values, functions and services inherent in healthy forests.

Based on these fundamental principles and criteria, each forest region or country around the world may develop a set of regional certification standards that elaborate in greater detail what good forest stewardship means in that particular part of the world. This process has just commenced here in British Columbia.

In addition to setting forest stewardship standards, FSC also accredits certifiers - organizations or individuals with the required technical qualifications and professional commitment to FSC's approach to forest stewardship. After an exhaustive review lasting more than two years, the Valley's own Silva Forest Foundation is expected to soon become the first FSC accredited certifier in Canada. Silva Eco-Certification Stamp

Once a particular forest land manager's operations and forest management system have been approved by an accredited certifier, that land manager is permitted to sell products from wood harvested off those lands with the internationally recognized FSC Logo on the label. The consumer and retailer demand for FSC labelled products is growing very rapidly in Europe and is now beginning to become a factor in North American markets as well.

So what does this have to do with logging in watersheds in the Slocan Valley?

If a forest company or individual harvesting forest products in the Slocan Valley wishes to become certified under the FSC standard in order to benefit from the market advantages such certification will offer, it must be able to demonstrate that its forest operations meet the FSC standard. FSC Principle Six states "Forest management shall conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes and by so foing, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest." Criterion 6.5 under this Principle requires that "written guidelines shall be prepared to ... protect water resources."

The detailed FSC standard for B.C. that is about to be developed must eloborate these general requirements with the substance and detail appropriate to B.C.'s particular soil types, hydrologic regimes and other pertinent environmental circumstances as well the habitation patterns and associated risks to human health and well being. As with any other written standard, the precise wording and its possible interpretations will determine how demanding or how permissive the standard is in actual practise.

With this reality in mind individuals and organizations concerned about the protection of water resources and domestic watersheds should be planning now to ensure they have knowledgeable and articulate representation during the B.C. FSC certification standard development process. Arranging for regional or provincial watershed associations to become members of FSC wouold be one step in this direction. The second and most important would be for all watershed organizations to obtain a copy of the B.C. FSC draft certification standard once it is released, to study it carefully and to provide written comments to FSC-BC on both the good and bad aspects they see in that draft standard.

In the final analysis the FSC standard for B.C. can only be as good for watersheds as watershed advocates make it.

Marty Horswill - Coordinator, Forest Stewardship Council, B.C. Regional Initiative

Erickson residents resist Chlorination

To the Editor,

A big congratulations and heartfelt thank you to all of the people of conscience who have been so diligently maintaining the blockade at the "Watergate".

This action by the people of Erickson is cause for celebration. It is a movement that has taken on a life of its own with more people coming on as each day goes by. By dedicating two hours per week of their valuable time to maintaining the blockade people are demonstrating their refusal to accept the draconian edicts of the Health Ministry goon Dr. Andrew Larder.

The blockade is now into its third week and that is three more weeks with no poison in our precious water. There is still no word coming down the pipes about any court action to have the blockade removed. It may be that the boys in the back rooms were completely unprepared for a population actually standing up for their rights in this way.

The judicial review set for June 22 & 23 will look at the way in which Dr. Andrew Larder has dealt with the people of Erickson and their quite valid concerns regarding chlorination. In light of this it would be prudent for Larder to stay the order to chlorinate until after the judicial review is completed and the results are made public.

The gate will be blocked (except in case of emergency) until we have a stay of the chlorination order or we are served with a notice of injunction. At that point we will challenge the injunction in court and pursue a moratorium on the chlorination order until after the judicial review has been heard.

The chlorination order should be stayed until after the judicial review has taken place so that the EID could have free access to the intake site and the rest of us could go home and get on with our lives for awhile. This would be the only fair way of dealing with the blockade and the concerns of the people of Erickson.In the meantime the blockade at the "Watergate" will be maintained and strengthened and there will be no chlorine in Erickson water.

Lonnie Lecerf Water Action Group, Erickson

[top of page]

top of page | Perry Ridge Home | Slocan Valley Watershed Alliance Home | The Water Circle Home | Watershed Alliance Links Page