"To this point the municipality has been reluctant to provide those agreements," says Lehn. "We were feeling we were up against a brick wall."
Lehn explains that if Spray Lake cannot haul timber out through municipal roads, then they do not have any further use for Atlas Road and cannot justify the expense of keeping it open and maintaining it. The normal process in that case, he says, is to put the road to bed.
What this means would depend on talks with SRD, says Lehn. He indicates that it could be any combination of pulling the stream crossings, re-vegetating the road, recontouring portions of the road, and gating the road to allow the new vegetation to take hold.
However, Lehn says that he feels hopeful that Spray Lake and council can reach an agreement, and that setting up the meeting for later this month is a positive step.
The extension of the current road use agreement to September 30 will give Spray Lake the time to haul most of the fallen timber up Atlas Road. But Lehn notes that due to an SRD directive, they cannot haul out any pine beetle wood until after October 1. This is because SRD feels that only after that date can they feel certain that no beetles remain in the wood from the summer flight, beetles that could be spread to new areas if they are hauled out in trucks too early.
Lehn says that it will likely take them another week or so after September 30 to completely finish their hauling from that area.
Whether or not council will extend the road use agreement that extra week, and the issue of the McGillivray Creek road use, will likely be main topics of discussion when council, SRD, and Spray Lake meet later in September.