Clear cutting raises concerns
Wentworth residents alarmed over cutting on slopes above the valley
Residents of the Wentworth Valley are dismayed to watch clear cutting create a bald spot on the hillsides above their homes.
“It looks like they are stripping every tree off the top of the mountain – bare,” said Heather Matthews, who has lived in the valley her entire life. “How long will it take to replace that — it won’t come back again in my lifetime and not my children’s lifetime. It’s going to take a long time for it to come back to look the way it has always looked.”
Matthews says the bald spot is on the western slopes directly across from Ski Wentworth.
“It is going to create a whole different look to our Wentworth Valley,” she says. “
Residents estimate the clearcut at about 400 or 500 acres and Matthews worries the loggers will continue clearing the ridge all the way to Folly Lake.
Jordan Sprague is president of Wentworth Community Development Council.
The non-profit community group held a public meeting June 12 to discuss the growing bald patch.
“Not one person at the meeting was for it,” said Sprague.
Sprague says residents at the meeting spoke about around-the-clock noise from machinery, as well as erosion and runoff and impacts on the area’s tourism.
“People view industrial clear cutting as a major problem,” said Sprague. “They say their valley is being demolished. The great big bald spot keeps growing, every day it gets bigger and bigger.”
Conor Scallion is another lifelong resident of Wentworth Valley. He has two young children and worries the forest will be gone before they can spend much time in it.
“I’m sick and tired of seeing huge sections of forest being cut,” he said. “I see it every day in the woods. I used to be able to go cross-country skiing for a long ways, 15 or 25 kilometres and not see a clear cut but now half of what I used to ski has been clear cut; it’s a massive change and its disturbing.”
Kathy Cloutier, communications director at Northern Pulp confirmed the clear cut is land owned by Northern Pulp.
She also confirmed that the contractors were working between 20 and 24 hours a day, five days a week.
She said staff cruised the land before the harvest to collect information such as species, maturity, quality, advanced regeneration and site conditions before deciding to clear cut it.