I'm a fairly devoted walker of logging roads in our area, so over the years I've seen similar shows regularly.
And I'm not at all opposed to logging: it's what we do here, and an important part of the local economy.
I'm not even that put out by the fact that most of these logs will be sold to foreign buyers, without further processing.
But I'm increasingly appalled by the waste.
The area in question this time is just off the Erikson Main, behind the airport. It's private land, owned and gated by TimberWest, which is (primarily) a forest company that contracts out the actual logging show to local contractors.
The logging is done by one or more large machines that fall, limb, and cut the logs into lengths, pile those logs onto trucks, and gather most of what's left over into huge piles.
In this particular case, 14 huge piles, several over 20 feet high.Most of the area was replanted in March.
It's all pretty impressive!
But here's the thing: when the neighbouring several hectares were harvested in February of 2015, the same procedure was followed. So I know how this turns out:
Next December a team of guys will come in. They will torch the piles, which will burn for at least a week or two. Finally the burned-over areas will be replanted.
When I look at those piles, increasingly I see gigantic, unsustainable waste.
The company has no incentive to do something productive with the massive amount of usable wood left over; I just hate to think of the tons of CO2 that will be produced for no good end by each of these piles.
And the show on the Erikson Main is just one among hundreds on the Island.
The Main is gated at both ends, so although a few pickups have been in to cut firewood, to most people these piles are inaccessible.
Ironically, Campbell River is home to a “co-generation” power plant, which sells its power to BC Hydro. It was built in the 1990's, when we still had a functioning sawmill and pulp mill, and so had lots of waste wood to turn into electricity.
These days it runs on natural gas, piped in from north-eastern BC and Alberta, and nobody is requiring them to burn the wood that is still readily available.
Or to employ the local people who could transport it to the plant and process it for use.
It's pretty disgusting.
