Spray Lake Sawmills recently had an inquiry about the noise that was being created by our logging and the impact it was having on West Bragg Creek residents. We apologize for this and have been working on ways to reduce the noise levels, particularly at night.
The block which seemed to be creating the biggest problem was located near a ridge top on an east facing slope towards the community. This portion of the block has now been completed which should reduce the noise levels in itself. We will be assessing the noise levels from the rest of the areas still left to log and will be moving the feller buncher to “less noisy” areas for the night shift. This will generally mean areas with a west facing slope &/or areas that have sufficient forest cover adjacent to the block to help mute the sound.
With the amount of work still left to do this winter we will need to continue with a double shift operation but we are hopeful that this strategy will minimize the sound reaching the community. We anticipate active harvest operations until about the end of February.
I live in West Bragg Creek, why am I hearing noise at night from logging activities given it’s October 2016. I thought SLS was done logging in this area? It is quite loud so much so It has been waking our household up at midnight for the past several nights. This is the fourth year in a row Thanksgiving weekend has been disrupted because of the noise.
What is SLS’s plan to mitigate the noise?
Sorry to hear about your family being kept up at night due to noise. We don’t have any active operations currently going on in your area. We did a double check with all of our contractors to make sure someone wasn’t doing anything outside of normal operating hours. The noise you were hearing wasn’t from any activity related to Spray Lake Sawmills operations. We also did a retroactive check on activity from the last several years and weren’t able to confirm any active operations over previous years Thanksgiving long weekends either. We wish you well in finding the source of the noise irritation.