August 23, 2024
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd (CCC) is referring the Company’s Forest Operations Map (FOM) for Forest License A30171 Bulmer fireguard salvage access road permit, for public review and comment. The public viewing and comment period will be from August 24, 2024 to September 25, 2024.
Visit https://fom.nrs.gov.bc.ca/public/projects to view, and comment on, the FOM. A copy of the FOM is also available for public viewing at:
Porcupine Wood Products Ltd. – 8564 Highway 6, Salmo, BC, V0G 1Z0, during business hours: 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM Monday to Friday excluding statutory holidays.
The three year validity period upon which this FOM may be relied upon to apply for a road permit commences August 24, 2024.
Comments should be submitted to the Government FOM portal: https://fom.nrs.gov.bc.ca/public/projects
Or emailed to thaukaas@porcupinewood.com
Or mailed to: Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd, Box 850, Salmo, BC, V0G 1Z0, Attention: Bulmer Fire Salvage Access Road FOM
March 14, 2022 – Submitted to Lardeau LINKS
This is notification that Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd is scheduling to begin harvesting operations in CP 405 –
Salisbury Creek to Bulmer Creek Face Unit in May/June 2022. Commencement of operations will be
dependent on the weather conditions, freshet/ground conditions and highway restrictions. CCC will provide a more detailed timeline as the schedule is finalized.
Submitted by:
Bill Kestell, RPF
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd
Woodlands Manager
Lardeau LINKS Notice – June 10, 2020: Argenta Update_22_10-06-2020
“The following is an update of CP 405 – Salisbury Creek to Bulmer Creek Face Unit.
Link to final Cutting Permit 405: Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) for your review. CCC previously referred preliminary VIAs via LINKS in October 2019 and November 2019. Since the preliminary VIAs were referred, CCC has finalized the tree retention in the specific blocks and has dropped a block which has resulted in a reduction in the visual impact of the cutting permit from the visual impact assessed in the preliminary VIAs. The final VIA shows the Visual Quality Objective of Partial Retention for the visual landscape unit for the area encompassed by CP 405 is met with the current cutting permit design.
The VIA is being referred for information purposes. The community is welcome to comment on the CP 405 VIA, but there is no formal referral & comment period.
On March 27, 2020 CCC referred:
Detailed Terrain Stability Field Review, Proposed Harvesting and Road Construction in the Salisbury Face Area (Blocks 405 – 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7: Spurs 1-3, 4-1, 6-1 and 6-3), for Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd. – W.Halleran P.Geo, L.Eng
Karst Potential Assessment Lower Salisbury Face For Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd. –
W. Halleran P.Geo, L.Eng
CCC’s following comments generally addressed the general concerns voiced by concerned stakeholders for the TSFA:
Following the referral of the TSFA CCC, Will Halleran, P.Geo., L.Eng. (Will only attended one field trip), the AJL Liaison Committed and the Ad Hoc Committee have participated in two field trips. As a result of the discussions in the field trips and Will’s further clarrification of his terrain assessment, CCC has made the following changes to the original cutting permit plan:
Block 1: cable area on N-E unit of the block. To eliminate continuing the proposed road to the north end of the block to minimize the cut on the steeper slopes:
The timber will be yarded down to a forwarding trail above the WTRA. The wood will be yarded using a cable/winch assist system – there will be no skid trails in the cable area.
A forwarding trail/backspar trail will be constructed in block 1 along the top of the block from the landing at the south end of the block – no additional road will be constructed beyond the landing. This trail will be used to forward wood to the landing and will serve as the backspar trail for the yarding system. The trails will be fully rehabilitated following harvesting. The cut for the trail will be minimal – the terrain is steeper, but does not exhibit rock concerns.
Prescribed retention of 21-m2/ha BA will be met in this area in a combination of groups & single tree retention.
Block 6:
To address Will’s assessment that the area in block 6 will have a residual high likelihood of landslide initiation, CCC has dropped block 6 from CP 405
Climate Change:
Currently there is no empirical data on Climate Change that professionals can implement in their assessments to address the concerns mentioned in “absolute terms”. However; in discussions with Will, he contends climate change is considered in the TSFA and subsequent report – assumptions of climate return periods are conservative (ie 1-10 return period of an extreme event as opposed to a 1-50 return period for the extreme event). The existing road drainage culverts are sufficiently large enough to handle the road drainage for the next 60-80 years. Culverts at stream crossings are site specific and CCC defaults to installing larger stream culverts than suggested in stream flow measurements to ensure the culverts can handle increased flow due to extreme weather events.
Additionally, in a response to a previous email regarding Climate Change, CCC provided the following comment:
CCC indicated in a previous email that Will/CCC does manage for climate change by ensuring stream culverting will be large enough to handle sudden increased stream water flow that is expected to occur more regularly due to increased extreme weather events. Will’s assessment/report manages for climate change by being conservative in predicting quicker return periods of the extreme weather conditions which relates to installation of “oversize” stream culverts. Although Will’s report may not have a separate section on climate change, Will does consider climate change. FYI – CCC inspected the Salisbury road on Monday, June 1st, following the recent extreme weather event that caused flooding throughout the region and there was no evidence of water breaching the existing drainage on the road.
On April 23, 2020 CCC referred:
Proposed Cutting Permit 405 on the Salisbury Face, east side of Kootenay Lake: Assessment of habitat and risks for mountain caribou and other wildlife – prepared by Brenda Herbison, MSc. R.P.Bio.
In April 2020 Brenda’s report was referred to the BC Caribou Recovery Team for their professional “peer review”. To date they have not made any comment to Brenda’s report. Additionally, in August 2019, CCC & Brenda met with the BC Caribou Recovery Team to discuss CCC’s caribou management plan in Salisbury Creek and to see if they had any professional input. Although they did not give any concrete suggestions, the Recovery Team did comment there were other caribou habitat areas in the Region that ranked as higher priorities for allotted additional full protection than the area CCC/Brenda were managing. The BC Caribou Recovery Team did commend CCC for undertaking special planning and management for caribou in an area in which there was no legal requirement to do so.
For you information, CCC staff and the forest development contractor, who discovered the caribou tracks in 2019, surveyed the entire caribou management area in early May 2020, approximately the same time as the caribou tracks were discovered in 2019, and there were no caribou tracks found. Also, of the 80.5-ha that has been designated as the caribou management area, 46.3-ha is full timber reserve, 5.0-ha is existing roads & 26.3-ha (33% of the management area) is harvest area. 15.7-ha of the harvest area is approximately 30% retention.
CCC will manage CP 405 consistent with the recommendations in Brenda Heribson’s wildlife report and will proceed with harvesting in block 7 as per the recommendations in Brenda’s report.
CP 405 Submission
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd is nearing completion of the development of CP 405, including the commitments & engagement responsibilities required to stakeholders, government agencies and First Nations prior to submitting the cutting permit. CCC will refer the final CP 405 Site Plans (SP) to the community, for information purposes, a minimum of two (2) weeks prior to submitting CP 405 to MFLNRO for issuance. The SPs are generally the final documents in the development process. The SPs generally state all of the assessments, cutting specifications, leave tree specification, etc and silviculture plans and stocking standards for each cut block.
Submitted by:
Bill Kestell, RPF
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd
Woodlands Manager”
Forest Practices Board Audit of Cooper Creek Cedar operations released:
From the news release:
“VICTORIA – Cooper Creek Cedar is generally meeting the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act on Forest Licence A30171 near Kaslo, according to a new report.
The audit looked at timber harvesting, road and bridge construction, maintenance and deactivation, reforestation, wildfire protection and associated planning carried out between Sept. 1, 2017, and Sept. 26, 2019.
“This is a very challenging operating area for engineering, harvesting and silviculture, with many sensitive environmental values and local public interest,”said Kevin Kriese, chair, Forest Practices Board. “In addition, a previous owner of the forest licence left a legacy of poor practices that was inherited by Cooper Creek when it took over.
“We were pleased to find that Cooper Creek carried out sound forest practices. Auditors specifically looked at old-growth management and caribou-habitat protection, and found Cooper Creek fully complied with legal requirements for both. Cooper Creek is also making significant investments to address the legacy issues arising from poor reforestation in the past. The quality of practices on the ground exceeded legal requirements in several respects.”
The audit did find a non-compliance involving an excavator, which crossed a bridge that was not rated to handle the weight of the machine. The audit also found that Cooper Creek needs to prepare site plans for roads built outside of cutblocks. As the roads themselves were well built, this was considered an area for improvement. The company has since put in place a new process and is preparing site plans for roads built outside of cutblocks.
The Forest Practices Board is B.C.’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices, reporting its findings and recommendations directly to the public and government. The board audits forest and range practices on public lands and appropriateness of government enforcement. It can make recommendations for improvement to practices and legislation.
Contact:
Darlene Oman
Communications
Forest Practices Board
250 480-8594″
Download full audit report: Forest Practices Board Audit ARC237-Cooper-Creek-Cedar
Forest Practices Board CCC Audit Page
March 18 2020:
Please refer to attached notice document regarding development update concerning CP 405 – Salisbury Face and CP 416 – Bulmer Face
Argenta Community Meeting
March 19, 2019:
As per Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd (CCC) LINKS submissions on March 18, 2018 & April 23, 2018, CCC has been working on forest development on the Salisbury Ck/Bulmer Ck Face Unit during the past year. CCC is finalizing information to present to the community showing the preliminary proposed forest development. CCC is planning to schedule a public meeting at the Argenta Community Hall early to mid May, 2019. CCC will provide notification of the date and time as this information is determined.
CCC’s objective of the meeting is to present an overview of the Argenta Forest Development Unit showing the forest development area net down due to the Purcell Wilderness, OGMA, GAR Creek Reserve, Woodlot,private land and constrained areas, show the proposed development in Salisbury/Bulmer Face & begin public discussion around the proposed development and to discuss CCC’s next steps.
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd wants to clarify some false information that CCC, and the Selkirk Forest District have been recently questioned about: CCC has NOT submitted a cutting permit or road permit, and CCC does NOT have an issued/approved cutting permit or road permit for any area that is in the Argenta Forest Development Unit (FDU), as per CCC’s Forest Stewardship Plan’s identified FDUs. Subsequently, CCC will NOT be beginning road right-of-way logging and/or road construction and/or cutblock harvesting in the near future.
Submitted by:
Bill Kestell, RPF
Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd
Woodlands Manager
January 31, 2018: Please refer to the posted LiDAR maps and advertisement found in LINKS regarding CCC’s statement surrounding planned development in the Argenta Face/Johnsons Landing FDU.
January 24, 2018: Please refer to posted 2018-19 Proposed Laird Creek FDU Logging/Road Construction Schedule under the Forest Development Project Tab. If you would like to be added to our email distribution list please send a message via the Contact Us Page.
