EASTERN SLOPES LOGGING PLAN RAISES FEARS FOR BULL TROUT

Campaigners fear for trout populations

A decision to allow logging near Hidden Creek, a tributary stream to the Oldman River that’s home to the threatened bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout, is coming under fire from conservationists.

The plan, approved by the province last month, allows Spray Lakes Sawmills to cut trees on 57 hectares of forest this winter in the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies.

Hidden Creek is home to 75 per cent of the Oldman watershed’s bull trout population, which was declared threatened Monday by a federal committee, as well as the imperilled westslope cutthroat trout.

“The legacy of 60 years of logging and the erosion and sediment from those industrial footprints has meant that populations of both bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout has declined in those systems,” said Lorne Fitch, a retired biologist who lives in southern Alberta. “So we’re at a point where it’s not necessarily the best of the best left, it’s the last of the best left.

“That’s what Hidden Creek represents,” he added.

Officials with both the province and the sawmill said they recognize the importance of the stream and its fish.

Although it has yet to be classified, a designation is in the works to declare Hidden Creek a Class A stream — the highest protection available under Alberta’s Water Act.

“The bottom line, as far as the harvesting is concerned, is that (there are) rules for the company that it must be treated as if it is a Class A stream,” said Duncan MacDonnell, a spokesman for Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. The classification, he said, means there’s no logging allowed within 100 metres of the creek and water crossings are restricted.

MacDonnell said an existing road near the creek is an old one that won’t be used during the logging operations this winter — other than a short stretch due to steep ground around it.

Gord Lehn, director of communication/ecological goods and services with Spray Lakes Sawmills, said they’ll comply with all of the standards set by the province.

“We appreciate that there is bull trout and the cutthroat trout in there,” he said. “Because of that, we have worked with the province and we’ve developed the logging plans with the assumptions it will be a Class A and there is a higher level of importance.”

Conservationists, however, said there’s already been deviations from the standards that would be in place for a Class A stream — including allowing some use of the old road and not restricting water crossings on the tributaries into Hidden Creek.

Moreover, they suggested that forestry in southern Alberta is becoming a biggerpicture problem.

“I’m getting more and more concerns about logging at the landscape scale,” said Sarah Elmeligi, senior conservation planner with the southern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. “How are we planning and managing logging along the whole Eastern Slopes?

“In the last year, we’ve seen concerns about logging in the Castle, we’ve seen concerns about logging in Bragg Creek and now we’re seeing concerns about logging in Hidden Creek.”

Elmeligi suggested the province needs to address the policies and legislation in place for managing the forests in a way that works with recovery plans for at-risk species such as bull trout and grizzly bears.

“If we want to keep forestry as a sustainable practice in this part of the province,” she said, “then we need to have a complete look at how we plan and manage forestry.”

The province’s MacDonnell said there are strong ground rules in place for forestry in Alberta.

“We monitor things, we always try to make sure we can apply the best standards that we can,” he said.

“The forest management plan and system and process and requirements in this province have to be done to internationally accepted standards of sustainable forest management.”

However, he noted that the ongoing review of the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, which will set out land-use policies for the area south of Calgary, could potentially lead to future changes.