Province failing to protect our water

This week, West Fraser, the new owner of Spray Lake Sawmills, announced plans to log Moose Mountain and the West Bragg Recreation Area. The popular Fullerton and Strange Brew Loop hikes are expected to soon pass either through or beside clearcuts.

These areas are part of the watershed of the Elbow River, which supplies drinking water to Calgary and communities downstream. Healthy forests do three things with water: they slow it down, spread it out and soak it up. They reduce spring flooding and ensure ongoing flow through summer.

Instead of working with natural solutions, our provincial government intends to spend more than $1 billion on concrete and steel solutions for water management. The low levels of the silt-filled Oldman River Dam are a testament to the long-term effectiveness of this approach.

Only a month after the Municipal District of Pincher Creek had to dig into the riverbed of the Crowsnest River to access water, the provincial government reopened the application for the Grassy Mountain coal mine, flying in the face of repeated federal and provincial court decisions upholding a regulatory ban. This application includes a huge water diversion licence. The coal mine, like the logging near Bragg Creek, would remove acres of forests doing the quiet work of managing our water for us.

What is more important to Alberta communities than water? We ought to be managing our forests through a watershed lens, not for maximizing timber yield. And a drought year is no time to be opening new logging and coal mining projects in Alberta.

Roger L. Gagne, Calgary