Ross Muirhead

In an Aug. 15 article entitled: “Behind the scenes of the harvest of Joe Smith Creek cutblock”, a BC Timber Sales (BCTS) Blk TA0521, aka The Elphinstone Water Protection Forest, the article, quoted logging contractor, Sam Grill of Oceanview Logging: “If we hit 10,000 cubic meters it would be $560,000 in revenue to the province.” I would like to point out that the 560K amount is gross revenue, not net. Within this context, we reviewed BCTS’ 2023/24 financial sheets and it shows provincial gross revenues of 274M resulting in net revenue of 37M. This represents an 86% +/- “cost of doing business”. Another way of looking at this is that BCTS is netting, or making 14 cents on the dollar. …When we factor in the 86 per cent cost of doing business, BCTS’ net revenue for the logging of the Elphinstone Water Protection Forest comes in at $42,000. …Clearly, it was the private logging contractor making the money off the back of this local forest ecosystem.