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Attention: Editor
Wednesday July 21, 2010 This summer, thousands of people heading to and from the BC interior and Lower Mainland will pass the famous Hope slide on Highway 3.
Many will stop to view the massive environmental devastation this natural event caused 45 years ago when 46 million cubic meters of pulverized rock, mud, and debris came down the mountainside with a force so great it completely displaced the water and mud in the lake below and scraped away trees and vegetation on the opposite side of the valley.
In the natural history of BC, the Hope slide is probably just one such natural environmental disaster and it dwarfs any damage that past logging, mining and other resource extraction activities have done at the hands of man.
Fortunately for the BC environment, environmental awareness has increased greatly over the past several decades and the requirements for industrial activities such as logging, mining and road-building that could impinge on the environment have tightened considerably.
In many cases, the rules and regulations in place for new resource extraction activities like wind energy and run-of-river projects are actually leading to the reversal of human-caused damage from the past through the rehabilitation of abandoned logging roads and the restoration and enhancement of lost fish and wildlife habitats.
But as the Hope slide reminds us all, there is nothing that we humans can do to the environment that can match the devastating power of nature itself. When it comes to causing environmental damage we are complete amateurs compared to Mother Nature.
Sandra Robinson
Maple Ridge
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