Spray Lake Sawmills

Public Advisory Committee

SLS Boardroom

May 14th, 2013

 

Present:TannisZubot, Gord Lehn, SandraFoss, HarveyBuckley, Erik Butters, JasonMogilefsky, MikeKorman, MikeMacDonald, JJGraham (TimGiese – via conference call)

Absent: Richard Right Hand, Patrick Brady, Natasha Kinloch, Judy Stewart, and Morgan Kehr.

PAC Administration and Function

  • Gord went through the agenda and Tannis passed out an acronym guide to help with communications.
  • Gord mentioned that we may have one member resigning. (Representative for motorized recreation sector). Gord will contact Nancy to see if she would know of anybody else who would like to sit on the board. If anyone has suggestions let Gord know.
  • The Siksika Nation has also mentioned that they would like another member on the PAC committee- Richard Right Hand has been too busy.
  • Jason and Gord are working on a PAC questionnaire to be emailed out to all members. Gord mentioned: SLS wants to make sure we are meeting everyone’s expectations; the intent of the questionnaire is to ensure the PAC is running efficiently; the feedback sources will be kept confidential.
  • Gord suggested that the meetings may be getting too long and that we need to be respectful of member’s time. We need to be more formal with running the meetings.
  • A member suggested we have a guest speakers come to the meetings to provide an educational segment.

HCVF/Gap Analysis

  • Jason provided a handout with the following three major questions and a discussion took place.
  1. What are the most important conservation values you place on the FMAForest?
  2. If stakeholders and SLS were to work together to assess additional areas, as candidates for formal protection, what would the relationship with SLS need to look like to make that happen?
  3. If you were to certify SLS as a sustainable supplier of forest products, what kinds of actions would SLS have to take to meet the standards?
  • Some recommendations were:
  • Water, water water…Watershed protection and increase buffers; SLS should go a little bit further then what is required. All were in agreement that water is important and feel that water is a major factor.
  • Getting a base line; managing and monitoring watersheds.
  • A member mentioned raising the bar with FSC as opposed to doing the bare minimum is what he would like to see- that would increase credibility.
  • Avoid logging on steep slopes, reclaim roads, maintain water quality, make open roads impassable and impede OHV use.
  • Develop more relationships with the water groups interested in the area.
  • Gord mentioned JohnKansas will begin rewriting the Gap Analysis by incorporating the public and peer review feedback on May 18th.
  • HCVF – SLS asked “How do we go about working with groups that don’t want anything to do with SLS” (anti-logging) A PAC member responded:
  • SLS may need to call them directly and ask for their input. Gord has asked some key players and is waiting for a responses.
  • MikeKorman suggested that we talk to an employee at the Town of Cochrane (environmental issues in the planning department) to get contacts at the City of Calgary.
  • TimGiese wondered if there is a way we can show appreciation/incentive to groups for helping SLS look at the documents and give back input. Everything takes time and effort.

Finalize PAC feedback on FHP and GDP

  • RobBerndt provided an overview of SLSAOP, FHP and GDP’s during Aprils meeting, Gord asked the members, if they had any additional comments or concerns.
  • Gord suggested if anyone had any comments or concerns that they wished to discuss regarding operational plans, we could discuss them now or they could contact Gord anytime and go into more details at a later time.
  • Gord brought up the issue that at least two people have voiced concerns over SLS’s plans to continue harvesting this winter in the West Bragg Creek Area. Members were asked if they had any suggestions for providing an opportunity for meaningful participation concerning mixed use in light of SLS’s plans to host a workshop. The members provided the following ideas for SLS:
  • Definitely have at least one workshop, maybe two if needed.
  • Show pictures of cut blocks (before and after pictures) show casing how SLS is working hard today to ensure the forests will continue to be valuable resource for future generations.
  • Show watershed progress.
  • Comments from members were positive about the concept of having a mixed use workshop.

Five Year Forest Stewardship Report

  • Members were asked if they had any additional comments regarding the stewardship report.
  • Jason mentioned that last month, several members suggested we incorporate the SLS’s 10 years of water quality monitoring data into the stewardship report and provide an explanation as to the results in laymen terms. Jason provided an update that the data is being summarized and will be incorporated into the report.
  • A member mentioned several water studies have already been done some out of the Kananaskis field station. Gord mentioned we should do a literature review of water quality studies in our region and identify possible future water quality research.

General Items

  • We are looking at gathering support from different groups that want to see SLS become certified.
  • Gord explained that we hired Harder Brothers to work on video clips show casing how SLS manages the things we do in the forestry business. Some of the video has been filmed in the Bragg Creek area. The videos will be released soon and put on our BLOG.

 Next Meeting

  • The week of August 6-9th, 2013. Time will be confirmed at a later date.

Adjourn

  •  6:48       p.m.