Flash Floods

• A debris flow is a torrent of flood water and large material-logs and rocks-moving fast downslope.
• Logging in 1942 was associated with a 1947 debris flow down Roberts Creek. This flow is remembered as causing extensive damage.
• Logging in 1978 was found by the Ministry of Environment to be the cause of the Clough Creek debris flow of 1983. This flow caused major property damage on Orange Road.
• THESE EVENTS DID NOT START IN IDENTIFIABLE HIGH RISK AREA
• Debris flows often start on slopes away from the creeks and cannot be prevented by buffer strips, but they cannot be prevented by using only low-impact logging methods that leave most of the forest intact.

Risk to Wilson Creek

• The 1995 cuts in the research forest are adjacent to an erosion hazard area on East Wilson Creek.
• Other cuts in the Chapman Plateau old growth will affect erosion hazard areas downstream on the main branch of Wilson Creek and on Chapman Creek.
• Buffer zones along creeks do not prevent increased peak run-off from cleared areas.

Pesticides and Herbicides

• In 1990, local residents blockaded Forest Service attempts to spray herbicides on clearcuts in watersheds from Langdale to Roberts Creek.
• The Forest Service agreed not to use pesticides on Crown land on the Lower Sunshine Coast.
• The Forest Service has broken several agreements, including an agreement not to act in Elphinstone Forest without the sanction of the Elphinsone LRUP Committee. It needs to be firmly held to this promise not to use pesticides in our watersheds.

Local Management Needed

• As part of the research forest, the Forest Service placed arsenic-treated weirs in Flume Creek, which has over 30 licensed water users.
• Other activities in the watersheds, like logging and especially road-building, will directly affect water quality.
• These activities in the research forest and on the Chapman Plateau are going ahead without the consent of the residents who will be affected.
• The Local Resource Plan (LRUP) needs the power to approve or reject projects in our watersheds. Community representatives on the LRUP are not being informed of activities, and their objections are not being heard by the Ministry of Forests.