Council grabs at chop opp

Ukee council must have thought it had died and gone to heaven at its meeting this week, when a lawsuit from those community-minded owners of the Primera development demanded that the few token trees remaining around Big Beach “Community” Park be brought down, lest any more fall upon their bloated, overpriced condo coliseum.

The lawsuit somehow failed to mention that the tree-falling would further boost Primera property values by improving their million-dollar view of the ocean (and the eyesore Black Mark construction site, which is expected to be the target of Primera’s next lawsuit).

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Councillor Russcher asked. “People are suing us to cut down trees? Not to leave them standing but to cut them down?”

The CAO confirmed that was the case, adding that in fact the district’s lawyers recommended that the offending trees be axed.

“Hot damn!” said Councillor Irving. “I got a chainsaw in the back of my truck. Let’s go!”

“Dibs on the tallest tree,” Councillor Corlazzoli shouted.

Councillor Thorp tried to raise the point that maybe the fools who built their houses under the few remaining, unbuffered trees ought to go instead, but his words were drowned out by the stampede to the door.

Donning her Kevlar pants, Mayor St. Jacques was optimistic. “I see this as an extremely hopeful development,” she said. “Maybe, as the town’s demographics undergo a complete overhaul in coming years, our new residents will demand that we log off our mountain viewscape again, and raze our community forest to the ground, as we began last summer. I believe it’s a sign that clear-cuts are becoming cool again. We can have both industrial logging and industrial tourism.”

Congratulations, you’re a clear-cut logger!

Thanks to some clever, under-the-radar maneuvering by Ucluelet council in its guise as the UEDC (Ucluelet Economic Development Commission), every Uclutian can now boast of being a clear-cut logger.

The scheme now coming to public consciousness is a logged-off patch of hillside (pic, click to enlarge) bordering Toquart Main logging road, about eight km in from the Hwy. 4 turnoff. This is the area around Maggie Lake for which the UEDC has long been lobbying for community forest status. The granting of that status has been held up for years by various issues, but government insiders now think the recent logging operation may change that. “Ucluelet has certainly put its community stamp on the area,” said a Ministry of Forests officer under conditions of anonymity.

With keen strategic thinking, the UEDC streamlined the potentially controversial operation with a notable lack of public information and a complete absence of public discourse on what they were doing in Ucluelet’s name.

First off, council cunningly scheduled the harvest at the height of summer, when residents are fully distracted by the tourist rush and most are unable to think straight, never mind ask a few questions. Then, in a remarkable “coincidence,” the quarterly newsletters Uclutians used to get detailing UEDC activities suddenly dried up when the trees started falling.

The media blackout was so complete that, when contacted by the Tattler, even the spokesperson for Ucluelet’s environmental group the Folks who Don’t Give a Damn about Barkley Sound said, “Yeah, logging…. What. Ever. Hey, we don’t know and we don’t care, so chill, why don’t ya?”

The UEDC pulled off another PR coup on the always troublesome “sustainability” front that has boondoggled so many industrial operations in our area. By ducking public disclosure, the UEDC was able to let the industrialists call the shots. The effort was billed as a Ucluelet effort throughout, and indeed appeared that way to the casual onlooker. Only a modest sign on site showed who the real clout behind the operation was.

The UEDC was only too happy to take the heat off Interfor, which has been under intense pressure from enviro groups for years because of its logging practices. Now, they say, we’ll be able to reassure those thousands of kayakers and campers heading for the Toquart Bay recreation site every summer, right past the harvest site. “Don’t worry,” we’ll say, “it wasn’t some big, evil multinational that did this. It was Ucluelet!”

Independent silviculture experts contracted by the Tattler confirm the Maggie Lake cut exhibits no hint of ecological sustainability. “Stream setbacks? Selective cut? Animal habitat? Nix, nix and nix,” said consultant Axel Droppum. “We used the lowest-common-denominator rules we could get away with. We got road construction galore, probably slumping and washouts when the rains start. Brilliant! It’s like we’ve been blowing pure smoke all along, with all that talk about sustainability.”

And the deeper you look, the more incredible it gets. The Tattler has learned that all this timber was taken down without a smidge of value added locally. In fact, nobody on the UEDC seems to have the slightest idea where any of the logs ended up, once they entered the Interfor maw. The sole benefit to the community from this almost-a-community-forest initiative appears to be that a few locals got a few months’ wages out of it. “It’s like a direct return to the 1980s,” said one jubilant beneficiary from the cab of his new pick-up truck, before leaving to file his EI application.

Rumour has it that council is thinking of applying for one or more “world class industrial activity” awards, to add to the shelf of “world class livability” awards they’ve already garnered for selling Ukee out to giant corporate tourism.

Indeed, psychologists claim it is no small feat of mental gymnastics for a council to simultaneously promote Ucluelet as a world-class eco-tourism destination, and indulge in a little third-world style slash-and-burn on the side. “But that’s why we bin re-electing ’em for decades,” said local voter Chainsaw Pete. “We know they’re up to it.”

By every measure the operation was a success all round and, as shareholders of the UEDC, each and every Ucluelet citizen played an important role. As a token of appreciation, district office personnel announced that free honorary chainsaws will be given out to Ukee residents at the village office for the rest of this month. Stop by and claim yours today!