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Steve MacNaull 2010-02-17 Kelowna Daily Courier:
Tolko logging trucks will use alternate routes to avoid the possibility of Okanagan Indian band blockades on Westside Road. Vernon-based Tolko recently won a court case and was given the OK to harvest trees in the Browns Creek area above Okanagan Indian band land. A Tolko contractor is currently building a road to one of the eight blocks to be cut before spring breakup; however, no logging has started. “We‘ll take the alternate routes from Highway 97 onto forest services road from Westwold and Monte Lake,” Tolko Okanagan woodland manager Mark Tamas said. “It will cost us extra time and money, but that way we can avoid the section of Westside Road off Hwy. 97 (south of Spallumcheen) that runs through Okanagan Indian band land and where we might get blocked.” Trees cut in the Browns Creek area are destined for processing at Tolko‘s Armstrong mill. Tolko also has a mill in Kelowna. In a news release issued this week, Okanagan Indian band Chief Fabian Alexis said he‘d sent a letter to Tolko telling the company their vehicles and/or those of their contractors would not be allowed to use the portion of Westside Road that runs through band reserve No. 1 that provides access to Sugar Loaf Forestry Road.

“All such vehicles will be stopped and turned back and if necessary impounded,” Alexis wrote in a letter to Tolko CEO Brad Thorlakson. Besides copying his letter to the media, the chief also sent copies to B.C. Minister of Forests Pat Bell and Okanagan Nation Alliance Grand Chief Stewart Philip. Tolko‘s Tamas maintains that Westside Road is public and the company should be able to use it.

However, it will utilize the alternatives so it doesn‘t clash further with the band. The band is opposed to Tolko‘s logging in the Browns Creek area because it is the watershed that supplies the band with its drinking water. The band also says the area has archaeological importance to its people. The band also doesn‘t like the idea of logging trucks driving through the reserve near where families live and children play. Tamas said for the nine years the company did use the section of Westside Road through the reserve, safety was always its primary concern.