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It's around noon on a glorious sunny December day, with temperatures hovering just above zero. The Fraser River at high tide is moving fast, reaching far up its rocky shores and into marshland, tossing about whatever crosses its path.

Beachcomber Phil Ogden, in a grey fleece, faded T-shirt and scruffy blue jeans, sets out to snag a few logs floating down the river. A log salvage company run by the forest industry will pay him for his efforts.

Mr. Ogden heads down the slippery dock at Skyline Marina in Richmond toward his battered, 30-year-old log salvage boat. He spots his first log, a thick one about 12 feet long and sawed at both ends, knocking against a yacht tied up at the dock. To the untrained eye, it looks like an easy and lucrative catch.

Mr. Ogden speculates the unmarked log had been cut in the bush somewhere in B.C., probably to take it out of the forest more easily by helicopter. It would be of some value if it were still part of the log boom that a tugboat towed up the river to a mill. But it is now virtually worthless, he says. The salvage company would buy back the log for pulp. Mr. Ogden just keeps walking.

“If I take that log, I'd lose about $8,” he says, calculating his cost for fuel and a levy for processing the log sale. “It was expensive to get from the bush to here. Now it's worth nothing.”

The shores of the Fraser River are littered with thousands of logs – but no one, not even a beachcomber, bothers picking them up. On the loose, they roll with the tides, flattening wetland vegetation and threatening fish and bird habitat. They cause thousands of dollars of damage to marinas, boathouses and yachts. They pose potentially fatal danger to boaters.

Beachcombers and environmentalists have tried for years to force changes in the system of log salvaging that provides minimal incentives to clean up the river. Shirley Weishuhn has been fighting for higher payouts for more than a decade, but she is ready to give up. “I'm afraid that I do not have a lot of fight left in me,” says the beachcomber, who lost a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the log salvage system. “The [beachcombers] who are willing to fight are all pretty tired.”

Environmentalist Mitch Anderson spearheaded a beachcomber-run company that was going to remake the system. He is also ready to move on. He hopes someone can be found in the new year to take over his job.

NO MARKET FOR LOGS

The Fraser River estuary is one of the largest and most productive habitats for shore birds, birds of prey and waterfowl along North America's Pacific Coast. Millions of juvenile salmon migrate down the river every year.

The wildlife shares the river with tugboats that tow log booms, each with hundreds of logs, to sawmills and pulp-and-paper mills further upstream. Sometimes, the log booms are brought into the Fraser River in order to store the wood temporarily in freshwater before shipping overseas. Invariably, some logs roll out of the booms as the tides wash in and out. It's unclear who owns them. Most of the loose ones are unmarked. Companies that cut the trees rarely put their tag on the logs.

The equivalent of wood from 2,000 logging trucks accumulates every year in the Fraser River's marshes, according to an estimate made earlier this decade. The B.C. government stepped in to regulate the log salvage business in the early 1950s. Beachcombers were required to buy a permit. They were allowed to sell logs only to a provincially licensed log salvage company.

Gulf Log Salvage Co-operative Association was set up to buy and market the stray logs. The arrangement, however, has failed to clear the river. Beachcombers say they are not paid enough. They pushed for higher payouts, but their efforts have been futile. They worked with environmentalists to draw attention to the ecological damage along the river. They went to court to challenge the constitutionality of regulations governing log salvage. They set up a competitor in an effort to boost prices for salvage. But so far, they have little to show for it.

Gulf Log, run by the forest companies, marine insurance companies and log brokers, did not respond to two requests for an interview. An office employee who did not want to be identified said the co-operative has a new manager who may not be familiar with the issues. On its website, Gulf says it pays less than the value of fresh green timber. The prices reflect the market for the logs, the company says. Some mills refuse salvaged logs, concerned about hitting metal stuck in them. Or the logs could be damaged by insects or impregnated with sand.

Mr. Anderson became involved with beachcombers through activities with environmental groups. He had set out to work on reclamation of fish and bird habitat. He discovered that loose logs would invariably wash back after areas were cleaned up. “It was just a waste of time to clean up the marshes,” he says.

He kept hearing the same thing over and over again. Forest workers talked about the lack of competition in marketing the stray logs. The industry co-operative paid a modest recovery fee rather than market value of the wood. Beachcombers saw the industry's log salvage co-operative as an unfair monopoly perpetuated by regulation.

Mr. Anderson started working with a group of beachcombers who believed they could be paid a higher price and still find a market for the wood. “The idea was to build a competitor to Gulf so beachcombers would have a choice where to deliver wood,” he says.

He is currently general manger of Western Log Sort and Salvage Co-operative, the company set up in 2006 to compete with Gulf. Its track record in finding a market for the higher-priced logs so far is bleak. “We have sold almost no wood at all,” Mr. Anderson admits.

He was not the right person to run the business, he says. “I don't know what I am doing. This is my first business. I'm a terrible person to run this. I hope they find someone else,” Mr. Anderson says. He hopes the company can find a log broker who understands the industry.

“In the right hands, there's no reason it cannot be a viable business that is a healthy competitor to Gulf,” he says. “It will not put Gulf out of business, it will just give beachcombers a choice.”

‘NO ONE WANTS IT'

Mr. Ogden, 57, has worked on the water since he quit high school more than 40 years ago to help out on a fishing boat. He has owned his own boat since he was 20.

Despite the fluctuations in the market, he has always made his living working on fish boats, towboats and beachcombing.

“I work by myself. I come and go as I want. I work with the tides,” he says.

His boat is a rugged cruiser of chipped plywood and shattered fibreglass with windows cracked by metal spikes that have slipped out of logs and lashed back with ferocious speed. The boat, well stocked with Coca-Cola, has a 330-horsepower engine that has rendered him deaf in his left ear. The cabin is permeated with fumes that dissipate only occasionally as the wind gusts through.

Within an hour on the water, Mr. Ogden, a director of the beachcombers co-operative, picks up three logs of decent length. He points to a log that appeared on the water in the past hour. He is certain it rolled out of a log boom that sits next to a mill. He feels justified in selling the log back to the forest company.

“They lost it and as far as I am concerned, they abandoned it. They do not hire anyone to pick it up,” he says.

If he took the log to Gulf, it would be bought at a fraction of the price paid for logs that remain in the boom. “Because I got it, no one wants it. They say it is not a fresh green log. It has as much bark as any other log in the boom,” he says.

He estimated the log was worth about $100, but he would be paid about $20. After paying processing fees to the log salvage co-op, he would take home around $12, which would almost pay for his fuel.

Meanwhile, at the Skyline Marina, arrangements will be made to move the stray log that no one wants back into the river. Bela Vigh, manager of Skyline Marina, says he will have the log dragged into the middle of the river.

“Who knows where it will go. The tide will take it away. Maybe into another marina,” Mr. Vigh says. “What else can we do?”