Environmentalists and Roberts Creek residents are alarmed by plans to log adjacent to Mt. Elphinstone Provincial Park.Rick O'Neill, a wildlife photographer in Roberts Creek, said the proposed cut block in the centre of a horseshoe-shaped section of the park would destroy the park's ecological integrity. And he is very concerned that the Ministry of Forests plans to develop a new logging road that would cross five creeks in 700 metres.
"The creeks and their gullies are critical habitat for two species of frog, both listed as threatened or on the endangered species list. These are the tailed frog and the red-legged frog," said O'Neill in a letter to Rob Martin, planning officer in the Ministry of Forest's Campbell River office.
"The gullies of the major creeks are 30 to 50 metres wide and at least 10 metres deep The cost of this road may equal or even exceed the value of the timber which will be obtained from these cuts."
O'Neill says a better alternative would be to use existing roads and avoid the new creek crossings.
Francesca Hollander said many Roberts Creek residents, including herself, depend on Malcolm and Robinson creeks for domestic water. They are concerned about the possible effects of logging and road building on their water supply.
"Living on Crowe Road, I get my water from Robinson Creek," she said. "It's going to impact, definitely, the flow of water."
Hollander said the forest slopes above Roberts Creek have been heavily logged in the past few years, especially on the large private lots owned by Weyerhaeuser and AJB Investments. She believes the logging has already disrupted the flow of water in the area.
"Look at Lemon Road and all the floods on the highway," she said. "It floods after the rain and then goes dry."
O'Neill and Hollander are organizing a letter-writing campaign in an attempt to change the logging plans.
"It's going through B.C. Timber Sales, and no contracts have been let yet," said O'Neill. "This is why we're talking about it now."
Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park is 139 hectares in three separate locations of the lower slopes of the mountain, above Roberts Creek and Wilson Creek. It was established to protect the mixed old growth and second growth forest and their rich fungi populations, which include the rare mushroom tricholoma apium. The park's zoning plan, developed by the Ministry of Parks in 2003, states, "All three areas of the park sites are relatively small and could be impacted by adjacent development or forestry activities."
O'Neill, who was part of the grassroots effort to create the Mount Elphinstone park, said the existing park protects only fragments of the 1500 hectares originally proposed for the park. The three park sites were chosen to protect the most sensitive and unique parts of the forest, but he fears they will be destroyed if the surrounding forest is clear cut.
"We hoped to get some sort of protection or ecosystem-based logging" for the forest bordering the park areas, he said.
Walking through the park to the proposed cut block, O'Neill turned over a piece of fallen bark at the foot of a dead snag to uncover a terrestrial salamander.
"This is the best salamander habitat," said O'Neill. "There are four other species I've seen in this area."
Pointing to the flagging tape marking the snag as the centre line of the proposed logging road, O'Neill said, "They'll cut these snags and never let them come back."
A few minutes later, on the bank of the west arm of Malcolm Creek, O'Neill scooped up a tailed frog, which lives only in cold, clear streams shaded by forests.
"They should put in bridges, but I'm afraid they'll just put culverts," said O'Neill. "These creeks aren't even on the map, but all five are year-round creeks."
