Almost half of the logging roads no longer needed in Metro Vancouver’s drinking watersheds have been deactivated. The rest should be decommissioned in five to seven years, budget permitting.

That’s according to a staff report going to the meeting of the Metro Vancouver water committee today (April 8).

In his report, Metro watershed division manager Bob Cavill said the 2002 Watershed Management Plan mandated the elimination of roads that were “no longer deemed to be essential for future watershed operations”. At the time this was estimated to be 175 kilometres of roads.

“Since that time watershed road deactivation projects have typically been budgeted for annually and, to date, 80 kilometres of road have been deactivated,” the report states.

These numbers contradict comments made by drinking-water watchdog Will Koop that were published by the Straight last September.

Koop, coordinator of the B.C. Tap Water Alliance, made the following claim: “We now know, as I found out last year, that the water district did not go ahead with its five-year management plan to put 175 kilometres of roads to bed. So the question is: what is going on?”

Cavill wrote in his report that each metre planned for deactivation is examined by staff, and takes into account an assessment of “localized features such as soils, slope stability, water flow and seepage, as well as road deactivation seeding and planting requirements”. Cavill claimed this put Metro Vancouver ahead of other jurisdictions in the province where such measures were not applied.

The cost of road deactivation has so far averaged $10,000 per kilometre.

At the end of the report, which was submitted mainly for information, Cavill suggested “interested individuals and stakeholders” be invited for a half-day watershed tour in the early summer to “view watershed road deactivation techniques, progress and challenges, as well as to review watershed practices more generally”.