Ridge Park

I had heard that the City was doing some fire suppression work in Ridge Park in Coquitlam's Westwood Plateau area, and went for a look. WOW, I knew some of the problem areas already, but was surprised at seeing that the actual ridge area was also under their destructive ways . No idea why the ridge itself needed work done on it, no homes, and fires in the past have always been stopped by the rocky nature of the ridge area with its thin mineral soils; make work project I guess. I guess that Ridge  Park will never be allowed to just be itself and slowly heal from all the past human-induced damages again, a slow festering open wound seems to be the prescription that the Parks department has chosen to take. Sad for all users of the parks, and especially the wildlife that struggles to live there, they will have to work much harder now to survive.
 See the extent of the prescribed forest prescription HERE and HERE (pdf) 
I saw a young Douglas Squirrell that was obviously distressed by all the activity nearby, acting very erraticly
 
 Some pictures near the High Knoll, no homes near here at all:

High Knoll

Between High Knoll and Low Knoll

Trail to Low Knoll viewpoint is now a road, (just a matter of time now before someone falls from the cliffs)



  Links to some pictures:  Picture near the viewpoint (Low Knoll) more of a fire hazard now than before, when they were standing upright; go figure !

This next area burnt in the 1970's and was aerial planted, and is filled today with young trees mostly under 10 metres tall, and filled with "ladder-fuels",(the branches still remaining on the young trees, which can be a problem when and IF a fire occurs, by allowing the fire to reach the tree tops easily and travel faster.)  It was always totally beyond me why the City allowed homes to be built in this area without a decent firebreak between the forest and the homes, ( there is NONE, wooden fences too, courting disaster )

Boundary near creek clearly visible in this Image
Clearing near the power lines .   Below the area away from homes they appear to just be cutting the trees and leaving them in place, without chipping them. Nearer to homes they appear to be chipping the trees where access is easy, leaving fairly deep piles of wood chips in a few places, that will take forever to break down.

Further down it appears that Wildlife trees are also being cut down, ouch !

Eagle Mountain - Woodfibre gas pipeline

Seems like yesterday that this pipeline was built, and already they are expanding it, typical bad planning, but hey, only the environment suffers from all this activity, right?

Local paper article:  FortisBC seeks environmental approval for twinning project

The Environmental Assesment Office :   Eagle Mountain - Woodfibre Gas Pipeline Project
Where you can find the numerous documents, and open house information, the usual,,,

I am sure that they will leave the area in worse shape this time than last, the land is still attempting to heal itself along the Right of Way from the last onslaught of activity.


UPDATE:   So the truth about this matter is slowly being made public. The pipeline twinning is to go to the old Woodfibre site, near Squamish,  where the gas will be compressed, probably by burning a portion of the gas, and put onto ships for Singapore.     Pressure for quick LNG approvals may trigger backlash

Public comments  (PDF)

Sounds like a done deal, Squamish will have to learn to deal with the noise from the compressors, which can be quite scary sounding sometimes, and also the huge amount of gas pollution from them. I loved the vague concept that the proponent will look into using electricity to power the compressors; something that has not been done yet in western Canada, and probably never will be. It would be slightly better for the environment though.

Am I alone in noticing how vague the proponents prospectus about this matter is? But hey our Premier apparently embraces the gas industry, maybe she has inhaled a little too much H2S?

A few of the many groups who are opposed to many aspects of the proposal:
Future of Howe Sound society ( FHSS )
Squamish Streamkeepers
Sea to Sky clean air society

Way back in 1989 there was the,  Coquitlam Watershed Pipeline Inquiry ( 1989 ) (102Mb, PDF)
[ Warning this file can be glacial in downloading. ]