In May of 2014, a torrent of debris swept down Cooke Creek east of Enderby. It washed out a bridge leaving people stranded and caused significant damage to a nearby salmon hatchery and interpretive centre.
Read More: Still more work to do at Kingfisher one year after devastating debris slide
Now a report from the Forest Practices Board, which bills itself as the province’s independent watchdog for sound forest practices, has detailed problems with the way infrastructure in the area was inspected and maintained in the years leading up to the slide.
The report says the failure of two culverts at an upstream lake caused the debris flood and that the province had received complaints about the culverts before the slide but on two occasions didn’t adequately respond.
Those complaints came from Dale Fennell. He lives in the area and has more than three decades of experience in the forestry industry.
“If they had addressed those concerns and if they had adequately maintained those culverts, I don’t think that flood ever would have occurred. Probably everything would have been as normal as it had for many many years before,” said Fennell.
The report also found that a culvert the province installed was too small and that there were issue with B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS) maintenance of a forest service road in the area and their inspection records for that road.
The Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson admits existing systems need to be enhanced and that the response wasn’t adequate in this case.
The province and BCTS have been asked to come up with a plan by the end of November to prevent similar problems from occurring going forward.
“If they don’t put adequate staff in the field to be monitoring, than it could happen again somewhere else,” said Fennell.
Thompson says the province will provide a response by the deadline but he couldn’t say whether that would include more staffing.
“We will address the board’s concerns and recommendations in the report. That work is underway but at this point to say exactly what is going to be in the response I think is premature,” said Thomson.
However, what caused the culverts to fail continues to be controversial. The province argues it was human tampering rather than any of the issues identified by the Forest Practices Board that caused the slide.
A provincial report released in 2015 pointed the finger at human tampering.
Read More: Culvert tampering likely to blame for Cooke Creek mudslide
“The incident has been referred to RCMP because of the indications that the actual cause of it was the result of human tampering of the culverts and that process needs to continue,” said Thomson.
However, Fennell doesn’t believe the slide was caused by people deliberately interfering with the culvert.
“The culverts, while they may have been too small to handle a hundred year flood event, they were partially plugged and the lower culvert was mostly plugged. If the water can’t escape through the culverts, than it has to go somewhere,” said Fennell.
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