As we mull over what’s important to our Nationhood, can we spare a thought for some local initiatives in Elphinstone? There’s lots of talk and hopefully a bit of listening going on. I’m hoping that hearing about our neighbours’ efforts to protect our homes and natural assets from stormwater damage will inspire Elphinstone residents to listen and perhaps join the conversation. Those tireless neighbours are looking for support for a project that will serve as a tool for connection and communication between levels of government bureaucracies, –– something that, in their view and mine, is woefully absent.
Elphinstone Community Association (ECA) has applied for a grant-in-aid from the SCRD to document and report on recent hydrogeological events in Area E, specifically in the upstream watersheds of Chaster and Smales Creeks, among others, where flooding and erosion have been extremely problematic. Experienced volunteers from the Sunshine Coast Streamkeepers Society will be out on the land gathering hard data about fish counts, erosion, log jams, sediment accumulation and more. Streamkeeper extaordinaire Angela Kroning, and ECA’s force of nature Brian Thicke are already well known to many Elphinstonians. A heads up, they and their team will also be looking to hold interviews with community members who reside in the affected watershed areas and invite them to help create both a historical record and a timeline of adverse events to identify the causes of catastrophic stormwater events and thus their prevention in the future.
Who can forget the dramatic washout of Smales Creek (also known as Whittaker Creek) in 2020 that caused a closure of Lower Road near Seaview Cemetery? The mud and aggradation at the bottom of that slide still blocks Whittaker Beach at high tide. Rumours dribbled down even to my old ears that it was a failed culvert under Lower Road that had caused the landslide. “But why was the culvert so suddenly overwhelmed?” asked the locals. I know elementary school kids who could tell you: there must have been more water going in than before, quite a lot more! Is the culprit the clearcut in the upstream watershed, as many are saying? Five years later, I haven’t heard of any other suspects. Is the cause perhaps a logjam of bureaucracies that need to find better ways to communicate and coordinate between and among themselves?
BCTS is planning to auction off cutblock TA0519 for logging in the Smales and Chaster watersheds this year. Another rumour has it that they are proposing a fairly radical reduction in their harvest quota in this highly productive forest, through newer “thinning” techniques, as recreational, environmental and residential values are increasingly recognized.
What do you think? Google: Smales Creek Watershed and see what comes up!
In other news: coming up this Saturday is the Annual Ditch Clean-uUp, from 10 a.m. to noon, meet at Cedar Grove School. Bags, gloves will be available and some traffic vests and grabbers, but bring your own if at all possible. Wear gumboots or other footwear suitable for the ditches. For more information, email hollislee@yahoo.ca.
Stay tuned for more Elphinstone Chronicles. If you have story ideas or other information, email elphinstonechronicles@gmail.com.
