Back in December 2021 a significant upgrade was taking place at the Gorge Harbour log dump (East end of the harbour). Heavy equipment had been brought in; grading and filling were in progress and some trees had been cut to widen the access road.
A new all-metal ramp had been installed (for sliding log bundles down into the water).
And a string of boomsticks had been installed to enclose a floating pound or pen, where bundles are kept until they can be assembled into a logboom (“boomed”) and towed away.
By early February the dump was active. On February 5th a dozer boat was busy herding log bundles into a raft, and a truck was delivering more bundles. An Atco trailer (portable prefab building) has been installed — as office space or possibly a camp — but it appears there’s no Hydro drop yet.
For those who have not seen this operation: the logs are held in a sort of cradle, formed by stakes mounted on bunks on an articulated truck/trailer rig. The upright stakes can hinge downward on either side. The logs are held down by cable/chain cinch straps while on the truck. When the truck arrives, the driver unfastens this strapping and replaces it with steel bundling wire, so that the logs are still bundled but now independent of the truck.
The truck is then pulled forward to the dump location, and the shoreside stakes are hinged down. The driver then uses a handy excavator to push the logs off the truck and onto the ramp, where they skid downward into the water.
I captured a short video of the dumping process, for those who have not hung around booming grounds.
Once the logs are in the water, the truck crane is used to fold up the trailer for easier driving.
When enough bundles have accumulated, the dozer driver will lay out a double string of standard 66-foot boomsticks joined with boomchains, with an end stick blocking the far end. The bundles are then stowed (pushed into place with the dozer) and when done, the boom is closed off by adding another end stick. In addition, swifters (usually lighter-weight boomsticks) are pulled across the boom at each chained joint between the side sticks. “End swifters” are added over the bundles near each end and the whole assembly is chained in place to keep the boom in its intended rectangular configuration.
Eventually a powerful tugboat will show up and tow the boom (now a long and thin rectangle) to its destination. The logs currently being delivered and rafted up are from the Cortes Community Forest’s woodlots.
So much horsepower — fossil energy — is expended on getting these logs from the forest into the water, and on the water to the mill or the port of Vancouver, that it can be hard for an uninformed observer to believe there’s much profit margin in it. These are not high-value logs; they are second growth, of only moderate diameters, and most of them have very coarse grain in the heartwood because they grew up in a clearcut.
However, the market for softwood is heating up again. There’s a strong motivation for BC timber companies to get logs onto the market. Island Timberlands is now the primary private forest landowner on Cortes, and their “management company” Mosaic has announced a 3-year cut plan at a recent online presentation. (Mosaic also represents TimberWest, which makes cuts on Crown lands.).
As a private landowner, Island Timberlands does not have to get permits from Provincial or Federal governments, except for their activities around the log dump and intertidal zone. They are only governed by the Private Managed Forest Guidelines — a document most of whose language was written by private forest landowners.
In their online presentation, Mosaic said they intended to comply with Cortes Community Forest guidelines for best practise. However, some Cortes Islanders have voiced concerns that Mosaic’s planned cuts may have a negative impact on riparian areas as well as stands already overexposed to strong northwesterlies by previous clearcuts.
The upgrade of the Gorge Harbour log dump is a significant investment and seems to indicate a long-term plan — far longer than 3 years — to continue extracting softwood logs from Cortes Island. What impact this may have on the harbour itself seems difficult to discover.
As far back as the 1970’s. marine biologists have been publishing warnings about acidification and anoxia caused by the accumulation of log dump debris (mostly bark) on the bottom of harbours. Scientists continue to study the issue: although conditions vary widely, researchers are fairly consistent in warning of impacts to benthic (sea-floor) ecosystems from the accumulation of wood debris at log dump sites.
The accumulation of wood debris near logbooms has important and long-term impacts on benthic ecology. Typically infauna is less diverse and sediments are often anoxic. Neither the extent of these influences nor their duration is well known. (Picard. Bornhold and Harper 2003, “Impacts of Wood Debris Accumulation on Seabed Ecology in British Columbia Estuaries“)
The impact of several more years of intermittent log dumping in Gorge Harbour seems difficult to assess or predict. Perhaps the volume of timber being extracted is low enough to avoid significant damage. Given the limited tidal exchange in this harbour, however, we might expect it to be more sensitive than log dumping grounds exposed to more current. Presumably these issues have been considered by the Province before approving Mosaic’s cut permit — particularly given the importance of Gorge Harbour’s shellfish farming operations.
The conversation between Mosaic and Cortes Islanders seems likely to continue beyond the scope of one online presentation. Cortes Currents will continue to report on local forestry issues as they develop.
This program was originally published on Feb 9 and republished Feb 19, 2022 as part of the Saturday Round-up.
Edited Feb 19 2021 to correct booming-ground terminology, with thanks to Bruce Ellingsen for corrections. Further commentary from Bruce:
Booming and towing logs to market costs about one half, about $8 per cubic metre, of what it costs to barge them (about $15). The logs you saw from the Community Forest (mainly Douglas Fir) are quite in demand right now, even though they are all second growth with wide grain and a high proportion of sap wood in each log. The market will absorb almost any solid logs, right down to 4” tops, at a price that makes it hard to financially justify allocating them for firewood for Cortes. The ones we do allocate for firewood logs out of our harvest bring about 1/3rd of the money we would get by selling them to the market!
These second growth logs are much less valuable in the market than old-growth logs with their finer grain, more clear wood and much less sap wood, making them much more appropriate for high value end products. But it is amazing what the second growth market will pay.
[All photos and video by De Clarke, 2021 and 2022. Cutblock map by Mosaic, presented to Cortes Islanders via “webinar” January 2022.]