Appendix 3, page 2, section 1 (paraphrased)...

"This change to the road system provides access to areas in Preston and Sproule townships currently accessed by the Cameron Lake Road, since ...
1. The replacement of the Annie Bay dam provides no bridge for the Cameron Lake Road over the Opeongo River.
2. The Forest Management Access Roads Strategy for the Algonquin Park Forest shows a permanent break in the road system where the Cameron Lake Road meets the Opeongo Lake Road.
Loss of these road connections leaves FAM area 25 without road access. It's proposed to join this area with the Shirley Lake Road by extending the Billy Lake Road."

The following illustrations are excerpted and overlaid from Ontario Parks Board and AFA maps.

This is an excerpt from the Lightening the Ecological Footprint of Logging in Algonquin Provincial Park. The map's legend relates the colour-coded areas to the recommendations of the board.


This is an excerpt from the AFA's Appendix 3 'Billy Lake Road' alternatives.


This is an overlay of the two images.


Notice how the first alternative places the road immediately along the south end of McCarthy Creek's N13 Nature Reserve Zone ("Booth Lake Bog"), bisects the Mole/Boot Lake canoe route and places it acoustically at the very south end of the McCarthy Creek valley. This road location specifically impacts quite negatively on recreational uses of the areas both to the north and south.

The second alternative is at a greater acoustical distance from the McCarthy Creek area. However, it has an immediate impact on the Raja/Boot Lake canoe route. In addition, it impacts on the Brook Trout AOC (area of concern) around both Boot and Baily Lakes.

Both of these alternatives have unacceptable impacts on recreational and ecological values. The pre-existing third alternative of re-establishing the "Cameron Lake Road to Opeongo Lake Road" access appears to be less intrusive and threatening from both a recreational and an ecological standpoint. The viability of this third alternative should definitely be explored more fully.


Barry Bridgeford
Executive Committee
Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists
http://www.ABRweb.ca

Absolutely! This is something I pick up on immediately. I'm also curious on why they didn't have an alternative of going south past Airy L. If you look at my map, you'll see there's a road right there. Obviously I have no idea of the condition and such, but it seems to me that that route would have almost no recreational impact and would achieve their goals. No matter the feasibility of that idea, both of the proposed routes have a profound negative impact on recreation as you point out.

Sorry I didn't get that map combined tonight, I was out getting a new (used) computer.




Jeff

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Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists - Caring for Algonquin's Backcountry - abrweb.ca

My Algonquin Park Map - Accurate, Detailed, Free - Version 2.0!

Yes. It sure is tempting to imagine an alternative access road heading out of the park from Airy Lake. But us having nothing but a line on a map to go by doesn't exactly put us in the position of being able to make an informed conclusion.

Having been a provincial property assessor for thirty years, dealing with rural and specialized properties (including managed forests), I look at the fuzzy "Google Maps Aerial Photos of the area and can easily envision logging truck convoys impacting both noise-wise and safety-wise on the built-up area of Whitney, its outlying area and a large number of rural and recreational properties all the way to Airy Lake. In addition, the upgrading and maintenance of a rural township road to heavy trucking standards could well be much more expensive than constructing and maintaining a new bush-road from scratch. Without firsthand details of the road in question, I remain highly skeptical of its viability as an alternative haulage route for logging trucks.

Without some "on-the-ground detailed information" of alternatives, I'm afraid we may simply be expressing uninformed "what-ifs" .. not the best input for public review. I don't believe trying to gather such "on-the-ground detailed information" in the period of a few weeks is realistic.

It's also important to recognize that Ontario Park's "Access Roads Strategy" excludes adding new "park-boundary-crossing access roads", which in itself prohibits any "Airy Lake Road" alternative from even being considered in the first place.

This official restriction puts us in the position of basically having to limit our input to the viable parameters that the AFA's and OP's operational framework allows. Toward that end, I believe we'll serve our interests best if we concentrate on becoming familiar with that operational framework and on evaluating the problem-solutions (aka: "alternatives") being presented in the AFA's "Appendix 3". We'll still have the opportunity to express our disappointment and frustration over shortcomings of both the operational framework and the alternatives being proposed.

Barry Bridgeford
Executive Committee
Algonquin Backcountry Recreationalists
http://www.ABRweb.ca