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Fight brewing over Sasquatch park

Logging truck companies eager to remove logs if boundary is revised

There is a fight brewing over our Park.

If you are not aware of it let me help to inform you.

The facts are as follows:

1. Sasquatch Provincial Park is a Class A Park.  This means it was put in place for the protection and maintenance of its biological diversity and natural environments, for the preservation and maintenance of social, ceremonial and cultural uses of first nations, for protection and maintenance of their recreational values, and to ensure that development or use of is natural resources occurs in a sustainable manner.

2. A logging company will be applying for the rights to harvest timber in an area around Moss Lake above the Park.  Other licensees could follow.

3. The licensee has said there are three possible routes out of the Moss Lake area. Two they deem not economically viable; the third is through Sasquatch Provincial Park. However, legislation prohibits an industrial operation in a Park without Parks BC consent. It has twice been denied.

4. The licensee has applied for a boundary revision of the Park to remove the roads from the Park. If granted the licensee will be able to run their logging trucks up and down the road.

5.There is an estimated 975,000 m3 of harvestable timber within the Moss Lake area. A logging truck can carry 45 m3 per trip. I will let you calculate the number of trucks that will be going through the Park.

6. The licensee has said they will not haul during the winter or summer months but only in the 'shoulder' months but not on weekends in those months. This leaves 123 days for hauling. I have no idea if they intend to haul over the Park roads for 4, 10, 60 years or continuously forever.

7. Last year 330,000 people visited the park. In the shoulder months 132,270 people visited of which 13,727 were campers and the remaining 118,543 were day visitors.

8.The Provincial Policy for Park boundary Adjustment states that the Minister may stop the application process for five reasons. One reason is for "significant public opposition".

I encourage you to email our Minister of Environment, Mary Polak, and let her know that you are outraged with the idea of Park roads being removed from the Park and then being used for industrial hauling.      ENV.Minister@gov.bc.ca

Thank you

John Coles