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  • - British Columbia is well known

  • for its stunning natural beauty,

  • especially the lush forest of old-growth trees.

  • But did you know that over the last few years

  • much of the landscape has undergone clear cutting?

  • This is where forests are logged

  • and left with large swaths of empty land.

  • This is a huge problem for the future climate,

  • and residents in cities like Grand Forks B.C.

  • are facing the consequences of clear cutting head on.

  • Join us in this next film to see how this community

  • is at risk of flooding and much more.

  • From Ramshackle Pictures, this is "Waterlogged."

  • (soft electronic music)

  • (water sloshing) (anticipatory music)

  • - [Tanya] Normally warm spring weather is

  • something to celebrate,

  • but in parts of B.C.'s Southern Interior,

  • it has unleashed destructive floods, the worst in 70 years.

  • - [Presenter 1] The city of Grand Forks

  • was the hardest hit of two dozen communities

  • that declared states of emergency over the last few days.

  • It sits where the Granby and Kettle Rivers meet,

  • and both are expected to surge again.

  • - These are the sandbags from 2020.

  • Tried to protect my house again,

  • didn't really work that well.

  • (Jennifer laughs)

  • 2017, I had a foot and a half of water in my house.

  • 2018, I had four feet of water in my house.

  • The water was up to here in the house in 2018.

  • (gentle music)

  • The flood of 2018 was a shock to the community,

  • people were not prepared,

  • the city and the regional district, they weren't prepared.

  • - [Presenter 2] Three days after the water rushed

  • into this neighborhood,

  • more than 100 homes still sit submerged.

  • - [Presenter 1] Nearly 3,000 people remain

  • under evacuation order.

  • (gentle music continues)

  • - [Jennifer] This is the Kettle River.

  • It was massively fast and powerful during the 2018 flood,

  • a lot different from this peaceful,

  • calm, little stream that it looks like right now.

  • (gentle music)

  • (water whooshing)

  • - [Presenter 2] Two days ago,

  • this is how downtown Grand Forks looked.

  • (sandbag rustling)

  • Even at those businesses

  • that were lucky enough to stay mostly dry,

  • it's all hands on deck today.

  • - We're just trying to keep it dry

  • so we can open up eventually,

  • but who knows this might ruin us

  • and a lot of other people I think.

  • - I don't even know what words to use

  • to describe this right now as

  • this is way bigger than just the Grand Forks wide of 2018,

  • this is something that's B.C. wide,

  • and it's gonna have long term consequences.

  • (gentle music continues)

  • (dramatic music)

  • - When I saw what was happening to the community in 2018,

  • when I saw friends and neighbors and the shock

  • that they were going through

  • I thought this is a story that needs to be told.

  • So within a few days I started filming a documentary.

  • So can you tell me how you felt when you first saw this?

  • - I was just devastated.

  • - And then I thought, well, if I'm gonna make a documentary,

  • if I'm gonna tell our stories,

  • I'd better find out what was the cause of the flood.

  • (dramatic music)

  • I assumed like a lot of people that the B.C. government

  • was taking care of our forests in a sustainable way.

  • I had lived in Asulkan Valley

  • and I knew that they were logging,

  • but I traveled mostly on the main roads

  • so I didn't see the extensive clear cuts.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • The winter of 2017, 2018, there was high snow pack

  • in the mountains above here in our watershed,

  • and we also had a lot of heat in April of 2018.

  • So there was sort of a combination of factors,

  • but people in town who were loggers started telling me that

  • it's the clear cut logging in our watershed.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • A watershed is all the streams and land forms

  • and the underground water flow

  • that flows into a drainage basin.

  • Our drainage basin is the ground being the Kettle river,

  • and our watershed is 8,000 square kilometers of forests.

  • When those trees are removed from the landscape,

  • when they're clear cut off the landscape,

  • there just isn't enough trees and vegetation

  • and intact forests to hold the water the way it used to.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • - What's happening in the boundary country is scary,

  • it's scared the hell outta me

  • because there's nobody looking after it,

  • they're just taking, running it into the ground.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • - Somebody referred me to Herb Hammond

  • who's a forest ecologist living in Asulkan Valley,

  • so he was generous enough to do an interview with me.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • - If you fly over the Kettle River watershed,

  • you're left with your mouth hanging open.

  • It's incredible the amount of clear cut logging

  • that has occurred there.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • What happens in this watershed now

  • in those clear cuts and young forests

  • up until the time they're probably 70 or 80 years old,

  • most of that precipitation that used to be moved

  • across this landscape that stays put as snow,

  • and in the spring because it's directly exposed to sunlight,

  • it melts about 30% faster.

  • So you have 30% deeper snow packs that melt 30% faster,

  • that creates spring floods and fall droughts.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • - We've had greater than average flooding here

  • in the past three out of four years,

  • and it's a combination,

  • yeah, climate change is a contributor,

  • climate change isn't going away,

  • clear cut forestry is the one factor

  • that we can actually control,

  • we can't control how much snow is coming down,

  • we can't control how hot it's gonna get here in April,

  • but we can control

  • how many trees we're taking off the landscape.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • - We're looking at a severe cut block.

  • This block is roughly 1,200 and somewhat hectares.

  • What you have here now is no retention,

  • and hence you're gonna get lots of floods

  • and lots of silt and gravel and sand in the watersheds.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • Yeah, and that's pretty massive, aye.

  • (dramatic music continues)

  • There's one guy that says it's Armageddon.

  • - Industrial forestry the way we do it

  • is completely incompatible with maintaining

  • water quality quantity and timing of flow.

  • There's no way around that.

  • - It's not that we're anti logging,

  • the point is that we want our forest to be managed

  • in a different way so that we're still as a community

  • reaping economic benefits,

  • but we're not doing so much damage.

  • (gentle music)

  • (water splashing) - Oh man.

  • - [Presenter 2] A times firefighters

  • had to swim through the water

  • (window knocking) (firefighter sighs)

  • polluted with toxic chemicals and sewage.

  • - Oh my goodness.

  • - [Presenter 2] This is the first time Kyle and Jaylee Piper

  • have seen inside the home

  • where they lived with their 11 year old daughter.

  • - [Kyle] My daughter's room destroyed.

  • (dramatic music)

  • This is the neighborhood of North Ruckle

  • and it was hit really hard by the flood.

  • All of this neighborhood, there's about 100 houses total

  • that are being demolished

  • in making way for flood infrastructure.

  • So about 100 people, about 100 families

  • had to find new places to live.

  • (gentle continues)

  • - It's like somebody come along

  • and hit you with a baseball bat in the side of the head,

  • I mean, it's a shock, right?