e At Lubbe Lake reservoir, Local 1-80 members discuss logging activity. L. to r. are Local 1-80 business agent Bri-
an Butler, local union president Bill Routley, and watershed chargehand Mike Kral.

Victoria watershed loggers face new
obstacles despite excellent

If there is anywhere where there
are outstanding logging practices, it is
seen in the Greater Victoria Water
Supply Area. Since the late 1950’s,
IWA members have logged, replanted,
and tended to the area which supplies
the province’s capital and its sur-
rounding areas with quality drinking
water.

All of that activity takes place under
a regime of “intensive forest manage-
ment” in which logging is only a part
of the planning that is involved. So as
recent attacks against forest practices
in the watershed have been mounting,
those who work in the woods are be-
coming very concerned that their long
term employment may be at risk.

In the Spring of this year a provin-
cial court judge reviewed the legisla-
tive act that put the Greater Victoria
Water District into place and said that
commercial logging was not meant to
be part of its mandate.

There has been a steady looging
crew in the watershed since 1957 and
commercial logging was always done.
The proceeds from the sales of the
logs go to pay out the wages and ex-
penses and then go into the coffers of
the GVWD. All of the logging activity
has helped Victoria reduce its drink-
ing water costs.

On their zealous quest to shut down
logging environment groups such as
the Sierra Club of Western Canada
and the Wester Canadian Wilderness

Committee brought the watershed
logging case to court and got the
judge on their side.

The IWA strongly disagrees with
the judge’s ruling on commercial log-
ging and says that the wording of the
legislation gives the GVRD Board of
Governors the right to manage the
lands in the district and that must in-
clude commercial logging.

Bill Routley, president of IWA-
CANADA Local 1-80, which repre-
sents about 25 union members who
work in the watershed says that envi-
ronmental groups are looking for any
reason to put a halt to logging activity.

Brother Routley says the judge also
went one step further against the
union and its workers by saying that
the GVWD should sell off its non-
catchment lands (the lands not relat-
ed to run-off for drinking water) and
that, if there is harvesting done in
those lands, it should be done by con-
tractors.

That was a giant leap in logic that
the union does not accept.

“What the judge basically did is
make some recommendations that are
not even related to the main issue of
the case,” says Routley. “Conservation
groups were asking about commercial
logging and he added things to his rul-
ing that do damage to us.”

“We're taking a wait and see atti-
tude to see what the GVWD does
next,” says the local union president.

The crews can still operate for rea-
sons related to the maintenance and
improvement of water quality.

In intensive forest management
planning there are various “land use
prescriptions” invoked to preserve
water quality in the threat of fire,
blowdown, erosion and disease.

Over the next several years the log-
ging and forestry crews (which are
one in the same) will be working in
the Sooke Lake Reservoir where they
have to harvest about 300 hectares of
timber around the perimeter of the
lake in order to prepare it for raising
the lake levels. In the past two years
there have been water restrictions in
the Victoria area.

“One of the problems we have at
the Sooke Reservoir is that when wa-
ter levels go down, the water laps up
against the intake tower in front of
the dam and there is a build up of
muddy water,” says Mike Kral, a Local
1-80 member.

Unfortunately when this occurs, fin-
gers are incorrectly pointed at the log-
ging in the watershed.

There are other problems in the wa-
tershed as well. One of its contributo-
ry lakes, Lubbe Lake has only been
about 50% full in the last two years as

forestry

the GVWD has been examining it for
earthquake resistance. Presently the
workers are clearing an area where
there will be rock brought in to stren-
then the existing dam which was
made over 100 years ago.

In 1993 the GVWD water board gave
the go ahead to commercial log on
non-catchment lands as long as that
harvesting was done selectively. The
results have been impressive.

With a considerable amount of
planning by the foresters and the crew
along with approval of the Workers’
Compensation Board, the loggers
were able to rig up skyline rackway
systems with a small mechanical car-
riage and did some select logging and
small patch openings.

“We're trying to show the Board dif-
ferent harvesting techniques,” says
Brother Kral.

There has been shelterwood logging
and single tree selection harvesting.
Some of the logging has also been
done with a skidder.

The crew developed its own proce-
dures in consultation with the WCB to
ensure that the select falling was done
in as safe a way as possible. The se-
lect falling did not take place on very
steep ground. Nor did it occur in large
scale old growth forests. It was pri-
marily done in an area where fire had
swept through over a hundred years
earlier.

In one area the crew left 20-25 foot
spaces between standing trees. In oth-
er areas they spaced them out about
40 feet apart. The long term health of
newly planted seedlings and exisiting
saplings will be compared in the two
different areas.

The crew is proud of the work it
has done in the selective harvest areas
and would like to see the public more
aware of their work.

Even the chairman of the Water
Board, Bert Kane, has wanted to get
some media attention for these new
efforts.

Continued on next page

A a

¢ Select harvesting areas have been carefully managed. Two year old
seedlings have been planted to speed up regeneration.

6/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1994