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No logging roads for Echo, official says
by James Baxter - Agassiz Harrison Observer •
Tuesday March 08, 2005 at 10:56 AM
There is no plan to build logging roads on the slopes of Echo Island to accommodate timber harvesting operations there, according to Kerry Grozier, District Manager of the Chilliwack Forest District.
Agassiz Harrison Observer No logging roads for Echo, official says By James Baxter
Observer
Mar 02 2005 There is no plan to build logging roads on the slopes of Echo Island to accommodate timber harvesting operations there, according to Kerry Grozier, District Manager of the Chilliwack Forest District. The spectre of logging roads was raised by Harrison Mayor John Allen during the Feb. 21 regular council meeting. He said the group currently seeking a cutting permit for the island had filed a new plan with the forestry office. "Instead of doing the single stem logging extraction which they had promised us last year, they [are] in fact going to build roads to do conventional logging," the mayor reported.
Allen said the information was drawn from an earlier conversation he had with Grozier, and from a second source who claimed workers were on the island marking out road locations. Grozier said the proponent, Sts'ailes Natural Resources Inc., is proposing a forestry practice called 'hoe-chucking' that would speed up the harvesting process, but he told the Observer that an inclusion of logging roads in this plan "is simply not the case." "The concern I heard was 'How are they going to get the machinery up the hill without making a road?'" Grozier said. "I echoed the same concern, but it is up to Sts'ailes to explain how they will do this without requiring a road cut, and they believe they have a plan." Hoe-chucking involves using a log loader to pick up 'bundled' logs and then move them over the ground to where they can be transported off the hill, in this case by helicopter. The logs would then be released at designated drop points in the lake. There are two benefits to this procedure, Grozier said. First, it ensures there are no branches on the logs when they are lifted, thereby producing less debris in the lake. Second, it will accelerate the harvesting process by ensuring each helicopter turn lifts a maximum amount of logs away from the site. Grozier notes that 'hoe-chucking' is still just one of several considerations. "[Sts'ailes] also have produced a new visual profile for the area with new digital mapping and photos of what it [Echo Island] will look like when it is done," Grozier said. "It exceeds my expectations of what one will see when the work is done." Grozier said Sts'ailes wants to meet with Allen and Harrison councillors to discuss the "final product" of the proponent's engineering work. "Their intention is to say 'here's the facts' before people get carried away with what they are hearing." Sts'ailes spokesperson David George of Interpac Resources Ltd. confirmed the company is still assessing various harvesting options but said there are no roads proposed, as per the original plan. He said no road crews have been on the island and he calls recent talk about logging roads "an unfortunate rumour."
"Over the last couple months we have been conducting all varieties of field work and we are probably a couple of weeks from a final plan that will detail the final harvesting and have the latest and greatest visual models," he said. George said the company is shooting for a spring harvest.
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