Decision Date: November 28, 2008

Panel: Alan Andison

Keywords:  consent order; stumpage rate; appraisal log dump

Weyerhaeuser Company Limited (“Weyerhaeuser”) appealed three stumpage determinations issued by the Timber Pricing Coordinator, Southern Interior Forest Region, Ministry of Forests and Range, for three cutting permits in the Kamloops Forest District. The appeals concerned the cost allowances for various roads that Weyerhaeuser planned to build in order to harvest the cutting permit areas.  Weyerhaeuser had submitted data to the Ministry indicating the lengths of the new roads that Weyerhaeuser estimated needed to be built. The Timber Pricing Coordinator had not accepted all of those road lengths, and had substituted other lengths for the purposes of determining the stumpage rates applicable to timber harvested under the cutting permits.

On April 11, 2006, the Commission issued a preliminary decision on one of the appeals. The Commission found that the Timber Pricing Co-ordinator had the discretion to reject the road lengths submitted by Weyerhaeuser, and to substitute road lengths that were reasonable, if, based on the relevant information available to her, the length of road proposed by Weyerhaeuser was unnecessary, taking into account regulatory requirements and the least cost principle (Appeal No. 2005-FA-113(a)). However, that decision was not conclusive of the appeals, because the factual merits of the stumpage determinations had not been addressed.

Before the Commission held a hearing on the factual merits of the appeals, the parties negotiated a settlement. By consent of the parties, the Commission ordered that the stumpage determinations be varied by applying road length data that was agreed upon by the parties.

Accordingly, the appeals were allowed.