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2	Overview The Chapman and Gray Watersheds provide drinking water for 23,000 residents on the Sunshine Coast. In the centre of this photo you can see the gravel mine at Sechelt. The white patches in the mountains are logged over areas.
3	Chapman and Gray Creek Watersheds The yellow lines shows watershed boundaries. The green is Tetrahedron Provincial Park. Ninety percent of the water supplied by the Sunshine Coast Regional District comes from the Chapman Watershed.
4	Mouth of Chapman Creek - Aerial View The Sunshine Coast was identified in the 2006 Census as the second fastest growing area in British Columbia. Our population increased 8.4% between 2001 and 2006, and our water consumption grew even faster.
5	Mouth of Chapman Creek Chapman Creek is also a fish-bearing waterway. The volunteer-run Fish Hatchery near the creek mouth raises coho, chinook, pink and chum salmon. During summer the creek flow is often extremely low.
6	Dynamics of Drainage When forest cover is removed, water drains off the slopes faster, generating much higher peak flows, and becoming more destructive. Stream walls are scoured, picking up more sediment. Large rain events generate violent streamflows.
7	Deciduous Growth in Disturbed Areas Red alder stands are the first to grow in disturbed areas, such as logging sites, deactivated roads and slides. Alder helps stabilize slopes, but deciduous growth also generates a great deal of leaf litter that adds a heavy load of organics to the water. The tea colour of the water in bogs is typical of organics. This is a back channel of Chapman Creek. Note the stand of alder.
8	"The water flowing out of..." The water flowing out of the upper watershed may be very clean, but sediment and organic materials are picked up in the extensively disturbed lower area. Rises in the levels of water flow cause a rise in sediment flow. Our water treatment plant has to deal with this. This slide in the lower watershed is about 20 years old and is still active.
9	"Chlorine is very effective at..." Chlorine is very effective at treating water, but a mixture of chlorine and organics in a closed distribution system creates the potential for organochlorines (carcinogenic substances), so it's important to keep the organic content of the water as low as possible. This is alder regeneration on an old slide site.
10	Hydrological Recovery In a coastal watershed assessment, an area is assumed to be 90% hydrologically recovered when trees are 20 to 30 feet tall. The SCCA is not confident in this assessment, and we don't think it is adequate to meet public health responsibilities for drinking water. The area in this photo, taken in April 2007, is deemed to be hydrologically recovered.
11	Timber Licenses in the Watershed Timber licenses are an antique form of tenure wherein the holder of the license has a right to cut the trees, and when the land has been harvested it returns to the Crown. The BC government is phasing out timber licenses and license holders must remove timber by a deadline or they will have to pay stumpage fees. The decision was made that the timber in our watershed has to go. This was not a public health decision.
12	Chapman Watershed Tenures The original Timber Licenses in our watershed have mostly been logged out. Those licenses reverted to the Crown and then were reassigned to Western Forest Products, BC Timber Sales and the Sechelt Community Forest. The Community Forest may start logging in the watershed in 2011. The original Timber Licenses are shown as a dotted line. A very great deal of the damage that has been done in the lower watershed was accomplished during the liquidation of this group of timber licenses.
13	"Northwest Hardwoods is an additional..." Northwest Hardwoods is an additional licensee with the right to log merchantable stands of alder in our watershed. Since alder prices are low, they usually wait for other licensees to undertake the expense of building roads, and then they go in. There are also private lands in the watershed owned by Columbia National Investments. CNI has announced that they are creating a new "resort municipality.” About 250 hectares of their watershed holdings have recently been logged.
14	Instability Forty-eight percent of the highest hazard steep slopes in the Chapman Watershed have already been logged. Of the 250 landslides identified by Western Forest Products, 85% were caused by logging and roadbuilding activities. It has been necessary to carry out extensive remediation work.
15	Example of road-initiated slides in the Gray Watershed.
16	Mid and Upper Watershed harvesting of late 1980’s - aerial view Research on climate change carried out at UBC indicates that short severe rainstorms are increasing in both frequency and intensity and will likely cause more massive mudslides and floods of the kind seen across southern B.C. in 2006.
17	Biogeoclimatic Zones of the Chapman and Gray Creek Watersheds Harsh growing conditions at higher elevations result in forest that is slow to regenerate.
18	Age Classes of Forest Note that outside of Tetrahedron Park, there is very little old growth remaining in the Chapman watershed. The mid and lower watershed has been extensively logged and much of the logging is recent. The logging on CNI lands does not appear on this map.
19	Major Watershed Sub-Drainages The SCCA’s inventory of slides is broken down by sub-basins. The main stem of Chapman Creek is the C-3 sub-basin. Most of the largest slides have occurred in C-3.
20	Responsibilities for Water Quality The goal and objective of government in managing timber in community drinking watersheds is: without unduly restricting the flow of timber, to not materially impact the quality of water coming from a public water treatment plant. This is an extraordinarily low standard for license-holders. Water quality is secondary to the flow of logs. On the other hand, the regional district (as water purveyor) is responsible and liable under the law for water quality and must maintain a water treatment plant that can deal with whatever raw water quality is coming into it.
21	"The Health Act and the..." The Health Act and the Drinking Water Act have standards for water quality. Other Acts, such as the Forest and Range Practices Act, do not. If a timber licensee can demonstrate that they have undertaken "due diligence" (e.g. constructing roads to current acceptable standards), they are free of liability for any unanticipated outcomes of their logging. The liability and expense of any remedial action falls to the taxpayer.
22	"The regional district" The regional district, as water purveyor, can ask the provincial government for money for remediation of problems caused by logging, but if they don't get that money, the cost must be borne by local taxpayers. "Unanticipated outcomes" of logging are a huge issue because our watershed is very unstable and has proved to be unpredictable.
23	"It is assumed in coastal..." It is assumed in coastal watershed assessment plans that timber harvesting WILL take place--it's merely a question of when. These assessments do NOT ask: "is logging in a drinking watershed really a good idea in terms of public health?"
24	Chapman is one of the most unstable public drinking watersheds in BC. The SCCA does not believe that it's fair or scientifically accurate to say that the watershed is in a condition of advanced recovery, especially in regard to meeting public health responsibilities for drinking water
25	Tetrahedron The upper portion of the Watershed is now protected in Tetrahedron Provincial Park. Unfortunately, the fact that this area is undisturbed becomes a rationale for doing more logging elsewhere. Tetrahedron Provincial Park Plateau. This is a high elevation catchment basin for both watersheds.
26	Edwards Lake Tetrahedron Provincial Park was created in 1994 after an extensive campaign by local residents, who were concerned about protecting the ancient forests in this fragile high elevation area. Edwards Lake - This is a water source for both Gray and Chapman Creek.
27	Mount Steele Mount Steele - This is the highest part of the watershed. There is still meltwater here in August.
28	Conclusion The Chapman Creek Watershed Reserve is highly unstable, and has suffered an extensive amount of damage in the past, some of which is irreversible. There is recovery underway but we have not seen any criteria or standards applied to justify the claim that it is in a stage of "advanced recovery. Further logging will have an immediate impact and a degrading effect on the quantity and timing of water flows Tannis Lake, 1991 - Gray Watershed
29	"Sunshine Coast Conservation Association -..." Sunshine Coast Conservation Association - July 2007 - www.thescca.ca Thank you for your support in conserving our drinking water.