According to a staff report going to the meeting of the Metro Vancouver water committee, almost half of the logging roads no longer needed in Metro Vancouver’s drinking watersheds have been deactivated. The rest should be decommissioned in five to seven years, budget permitting.

Bob Cavill, Metro watershed division manager, said that, according to the 2002 Watershed Management Plan, roads that were "no longer deemed to be essential for future watershed operations” had to be eliminated. At the time, this was estimated to be 175 kilometres of roads.

Cavill wrote in his report that each metre planned for deactivation is examined by staff, and takes into account an assessment of “localized features such as soils, slope stability, water flow and seepage, as well as road deactivation seeing and planting requirements”. Cavill claimed this put Metro Vancouver ahead of other jurisdictions in the province where such measures were not applied.

The cost of road deactivation has so far averaged $10,000 per kilometre.

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