| Facts support ban
i on watershed

Dear Editor:

It is exactly the kind of bad
reasoning and poor research
in Mr. James Thomson’s letter
(Dec. 1) that has gotten us
into the mess with regards to
the Greater Vancouver drink-
ing watersheds.

One of the faults with the
GVRD’s August 1991 public
review document, which Mr.
Thomson relies on to make
his arguments . supporting
watershed logging, is that
there were no scientific stud-

' jes conducted which carefully
examine the transport of sedi-
ments from clearcuts .and
roads.:

A simple classic study,
which would have compared

* ~~ the .amounts of. transported
sediments from intact forested
areas versus clearcuts, was
never done.

: - The,1991 GVRD-appoint-

- ed review panel . relied on
anecdotal ‘evidence,:and then
made unsupported and gener-
alized: conclusions about the
consequences of logging in

-our watersheds.

La One™ of- the ‘interesting

‘amendments: to the data

occurs on page A-15. A chart
shows that landslides are two
to three times more frequent
on logged versus intact forest-
ed slopes.

Friends of The Watersheds
have relied on the work of Dr.
Michael Feller from UBC's
Forestry Department, who, in
the public submissions part of
the public review, criticized
the majority of management
issues in the watersheds and
specifically the systematic
removal of “decadent” timber
as a source of fire ignition.

His studies saake it very
clear that young clearcut plan-
tations are more susceptible to
fires than the old-growth
forests ever were and in fact,
more forest cover has been
lost to logging (4,000 ha)
than to both fires and disease
combined.

We have also relied on a
PhD study by Dr. Andre
Arsenault of UBC who creat-
ed a fire history in the East
Capilano drainage.

His independent report
showed that the last major fire
in this section of the Capilano
was 800 years ago. Thomson

Yes to woodstoves

Dear Bditor:

«= In geply to the letter by Steven Davis calling for the banning
of woodstoves, I would say far from banning them we should
be promoting the use of woodstoves.

Ina province where wood is:king and where enormous

amounts of wood énd up ‘in landfills, wood is a clean, sustain-

can pick up a copy of our
Watershed Intelligence at his
West Van or North Van
libraries where all our sources
are carefully documented.

Mr. Thomson can also
refer to a journal, Water
Resources Research, pub-
lished by the American
Geophysical Union, and look
for an article entitled Peak
Flow Responses To Clearcuts
and Roadouilding In Small
and Large Basins in Western
Cascades Oregon.

The researcher’s work
found that — streamflows
increased by as much as 20%
to 50% after a watershed was
logged. The clearcuts and
roads act like a pipeline —
rapidly injecting flows of rain
and snowmelt across exposed
soils. An unknown percentage
of the increased sediment
runoff goes direcdy into our
drinking water. But nor to
worry because the GVRD will
spent $800 million of our tax
dollars to build filtration
plants to remove the unwant-
ed dirt.

The GVRD and forest
industry apologists are pri-
marily responsible for misin-
forming the public on these
important issues. The best
way to save the integrity of the
remaining old-growth forests
in our watersheds is for
municipal politicians to step in
and ban watershed logging
and roadbuilding.

Ross Muirhead
Friends of The Watersheds
North Vancouver

seenpencnc yaoi aa bene

= ;

Eaton Centre, Metrotown 430-2040

Friday, December 20, 1996 — North Shore News — 14

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