Unauthorized trails to big trees a liability issue By Michael Becker News Editor . michael@nsnews.com - ALL trails lead to trouble for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) in the Seymour Demonstration Forest. Bob Cavill, watershed manage- ment division administrator for the Greater Vancouver Water District {GVWD), is demanding that the group “immediately cease and desist from distributing brochures or maps inviting the public onto GVWD's lands and in particular, inviting the public to make use of unauthorized trails and view- points.” Cavill has also ordered the - group to “immediately cease and . desist further unauthorized marking of trails and viewpoints on Greater Vancouver Water District. lands.” At issue is a series of trails blazed and tagged by tree researcher Ralf Kelman. -. : Kelman has spent seven years identifying groves of massive _ old-growth trees located throughout the demonstration for- est. The Seymour Valley is home to some of the world’s largest old-growth fir and cedar trees —- trees as tall as 91.4 “mietres (300 feet). “» Said Kelman, “I want to demonstrate how you can have a worid-class forest with a great tree legacy.” _ “A roughed-in network of trails to the giants is the focus of a map being produced and distributed by WCWC. ‘The WCWC advocates turning the Seymour Demonstration Forest into a park called Seymour Ancient Groves. .. . : * Some of the trails and trees are named siter environmental- ists: WCWC director Paul George has a tree named after him. There’s also a giant with former Society Promoting “Environmental Conservation president Pau! Hundal’s name attached to it. “Watershed historian and activist Will Koup is recognized -with a trail and tree. “7° * Kelman’s dentist, dermatologist, his friends and his father have trees named after them too. : Gravity defied It’s all a bit too much for the water district. Said Cavell in his Oct. 2 letter to WCWC, “We are also putting you on notice that if anyone is injured by the use of those portions of the lands, trails or viewpoints which you have marked, Greater Vancouver Water District will be look- ing to Western Canada Wilderness Committee for compensa- tion and indemnity.” The trails are unauthorized, Cavill said. The demonstration forest is part of the GVWD's watershed lands, owned or leased by the district. The land is being held for eventual use should a new dam and extended watershed become necessary as the regional population expands and the demand for drinking water grows. Seymour Demonstration Forest Supervisor Laurie Fretz said WCWC president Paul George should “give serious con- sideration” to Cavill’s letter. Inviting the public into areas that aren’t maintained trails does present a hazard and creates a potential risk in terms of injury to the public, Fretz said. The WCWC trail map is published with the disclaimer: “some of the trails shown are only flagged hiking routes and people use all the trails and routes shown on this map at their NEWS photo Terry Peters RALF Kelman stands on a cedar stump in the Seymour Demonstration Forest. A map of trails to such sites is under fire. own risk.” But said Fretz, “Public safety is something we have to con- sider and manage for on a daily basis in the Seymour Demonstration Forest ... GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District) has the responsibility for management of those lands and there cannot be two sets of management people for the area.” The WCWC is petitioning the GVRD to rename the area the Seymour Ancient Groves Regional Park and change the land use of the GVWD off-catchment lands in the Lower Seymour Valley (below the Seymour Dam) to protected region- al park. In addition to the trail map, the group has printed 50,000 copies of a four-page newsletter on the issue. Fretz said the mandate of the Seymour Demonstration Forest is “to demonstrate integrated resource management and, to provide education and recreational opportunities for the public.” Said George in response to Cavill’s demand letter, “I called him back after I got the letter and I asked him, ‘What are you doing, threatening a lawsuit on this?’ I believe we have a right to put out this kind of information. We’re not going to cease and desist.” $2.5m for seepage study were ee NEWS photo Cindy Goodman From page 1 repairs. “I would be very, very surprised if there was any impact to anybody in Greater Vancouver from a water sup- ply point of view,” he said. “You can never take care of everything, in other words have an absolute 100% guarantee, but I think we've got a very strong likelihood that there wouldn’t be any difficul- ties. That’s again another reason why we want to see the construction peri- od as short as we can.” Morse said the water district is Ieaning towards a two-year rather than four-year time period for the repair work to Cleveland Dam. However, to finish the work in two years, construction crews will have to work around the clock from fall to spring. According to Morse, the com- munity showed support for the two- year option during an open house at Handsworth in Ma y-one of 75 residents said they would support the 24-hour schedule if their con- cerns such as construction noise, night traffic and lights addressed. However, the water district must get noise variation permits from the District of North Vancouver to per- form the 24-hour-a-day work. “We are doing everything we can to try to minimize the noise and the disruption and inconvenience for the residents in the local area,” said Morse. The work is meant to alleviate the problem of water seepage in the east abutment of the Cleveland Dam. Left unchecked, increased ero- sion could eventually lead to the progressive release of enough water to cause flooding downstream from the dam over a period of days, said Morse. But on Tuesday, Morse said there’s no reason to panic. “It’s not an urgent thing. It’s just that the information we’ve seen over the past several years, we've been getting increasingly urged by our consultants and geotechnical people to move towards reselution of this matter.” Still, in a 1995 report, the water district said: “Due to the importance of the east abutment with respect to public safety, this project is consid- ered a high priority.” According to a water district report, the semi-pervious nature of the abutment has resulted in a con- tinuous low level of seepage since the dam’s construction in 1955. The water district said that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a variety of measures to control scepage were implemented, “some of which had been moderately successful.” In 1991, the water district received funds to investigate the abutment seepage problem. Studies have led to the decision to construct a “seepage control blanket” on the reservoir slope of the east abutment. It consists of a thick layer of clay and a lever of rock over the clay to pre- vent crosion, said Morse. On Friday, the water district approved $2.5 million in funds to carry out the detailed design of the seepage control measures for the east abutment. The GVRD board must approve the expenditure at its Oct. 31 board meeting, said Morse. He expects that to happen. Arson suspected in Lynn Valley house fire A fire on Sunday at a Lynn Valley house is a suspected arson. The fire was apparently set under a balcony at the burned around $3,500. The exterior siding of the house was a window broke during the blaze. A resident of the house was at home when the fire started at 10 p.m., but no one was injured. A specially-trained dog sniffed out fire accelerant at the fire scene. The North Vancouver RCMP is investi- gating the cause of the fir back of the house in the 1300-block of East 24th Street. A North Vancouver District Fire Services spokesman estimated the damage caused by the fire at “A North Shore Sonics player takes to the air with the ball during the:..North. Shore Soccer Club's annual Thanksgiving Tournament. In the West Van Blue Jays versus North Shore Sonics game, West Van won 5-0. —— Anna Marie D’Angelo