B.C. agrees to pay $300,000 to couple who say logging flooded their property

The claimants said a section of forest that borders their property near Smithers was heavily logged, and that parts of the property are now saturated because of flooding.

Lawyers for the British Columbia government have agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit by a couple whose property flooded after a third of the forest in the surrounding watershed was cut down.

The agreement came in a handwritten note that was signed by the Crown’s lawyers and handed over in court on the day the trial was set to begin last month.

Ray Chipeniuk and Sonia Sawchuk launched the lawsuit in 2014, claiming that BC Timber Sales — the provincial Crown agency responsible for auctioning about 20 per cent of B.C.’s annual allowable cut — was negligent in its failure to take reasonable care to ensure their property in northwestern B.C. would not be damaged by the logging.

It also alleged the agency committed the civil tort of nuisance by clearcutting the watershed to an “unreasonable extent,” causing flooding and increased flows of water that would continue to affect the plaintiffs’ enjoyment of their property, south of Smithers.

The province’s 2015 response to the civil claim denies negligence and denies that the province owed the couple a duty of care. It says BC Timber Sales engaged in a planning process “typical for forest operations” in B.C., including assessing conditions at the watershed and engaging a hydrologist to provide advice.

The couple’s lawyer, Ian Lawson, said he had put forward an offer to settle for $300,000. He said he was in B.C. Supreme Courtin Smithers last month, waiting for the trial to begin, when Crown lawyers asked for a pause.

They then gave him the handwritten note agreeing to the $300,000 settlement, subject to final approval, “which counsel for the province undertakes to promptly pursue.”

Lawson described the last-minute decision as “rather dramatic.”