BC Timber Sales to start addressing concerns over logging Lynch Creek
By Erin Perkins
Concerns Brown Creek residents have with logging proposed for the Lynch Creek area will be looked at this week by a team of staff from BC Timber Sales, said Ingrid Russell, planner with BCTS out of Nelson.
BCTS had a meeting with the community in May 2012 where residents expressed their concerns and had an opportunity to view detailed maps of the proposed cut blocks slated to hit the timber auctions and be logged between now and 2014.
The seven blocks of approximately 37,000 cubic meters of timber to be harvested are in the Lynch Creek area, a zone that connects both the Granby and Gladstone Provincial Parks.
Residents are concerned about the impact this project will have on their roads, the environment and the local wildlife, including the red-listed Grizzly Bear, over the short and long term.
Russell has been the person the concerns, electronically, over the phone or by mail, has been addressed to. She has personally reviewed the inquiries at least once already, she said.
“Normally the letters, emails and phone calls are all documented and held onto,” said Russell about the process. “We respond to the concerns as they come in usually.”
This time, however, she’s received a lot of response from her call for inquiries sent out to some residents in November, 2012. Not everyone got that letter, so, after being told about that, Russell also posted on the Friends and Residents of the North Fork blog.
The “wrap-up” of the information gathering was set for last Friday, Jan. 11. This week Russell and a group of other BCTS staff will go through everyone’s responses and then go on from there.
“We will figure out what our best approach is with the concerns and then decide whether to hold a public meeting, write letters or a combination of those to best address resident’s concerns,” she said.
She expects residents will be contacted within the next few weeks.
“We already do have some solutions to satisfy (the concerns),” said Russell.
To view original story about the deadline for submissions visit: https://boundarysentinel.com/news/deadline-input-proposed-logging-brown-creek-area-week-22722#.UPOPWW9EH3Q.
