Lawyers for the British Columbia government have agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit by a couple whose property flooded after a third of the forest in the surrounding watershed was cut down.
The agreement came in a handwritten note that was signed by the Crown's lawyers and handed over in court on the day the trial was set to begin last month.
The couple's lawyer, Ian Lawson, said he had put forward an offer to settle for $300,000. He said he was in B.C. Supreme Courtin Smithers last month, waiting for the trial to begin, when Crown lawyers asked for a pause. Chipeniuk said that for a year, he raised concerns with BC Timber Sales about the possibility that logging could affect downstream hydrology.The property first flooded in 2012, then again in 2018.
Just about every day, he said, they felt a twinge of depression stemming from the changes the logging and flooding had wrought on the landscape. "The flat topography in the snow environment is very responsive to floods," he said, with snow in a lower-elevation area melting all at once, and more quickly, than it would on a mountain with lower temperatures at higher altitudes.
Prior to logging, two-thirds of the watershed was covered by coniferous trees, Alila said, while the rest were deciduous trees that lose their leaves in the winter.
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