We have attempted the collaborative approach, we’ve attended the propaganda filled meetings, we’ve sent endless emails to our government representatives, this approach clearly isn’t working.

So let’s be seen and heard, our presence as a concerned community is very important.

 Media is interested, politicians are buzzing, this is our chance to make it clear we do NOT want a contaminated fill dump in our watershed! We need every man, woman and child that opposes this permit to please come join us and stand up for our environment!

SAVE SHAWNIGAN LAKE WATERSHED PROTEST RALLY:

SATURDAY, MARCH 30th

1pm

4-way STOP

Shawnigan Lake Village

Anyone available to help make signs on Tues, Mar 26th after 11:30am would be greatly appreciated, please contact us at shawnigancreekprotection@hotmail.ca

Between the long and convoluted resolution by Doctor Director Fraser and the submissive and gentle missive sent to the Ministry by our CVRD Chair, Rob Hutchins, many in the community are beginning to wonder if the CVRD Board is really committed to seeing their declared intent to stop the dumping of contaminated soil succeed.

The Board’s repeatedly said that this is a provincial issue and they do not have jurisdiction.  The Ministry of Environment has repeatedly said that the only entity that has the power to stop this application is the CVRD.  No one has ever said that this is a good idea other than the proponents and they may be a bit biased.

To sum up, the community does not want it, the CVRD has said they don’t want it, MOE has said give us a reason to say no and the proponent says it is the greatest idea since the invention of the wheel.  This is where it sits.

Words are cheap.  What is our CVRD doing to ensure that their wishes and more importantly the wishes and concerns of the people they represent are being fulfilled to the best of their ability?

Where is the communication?  Where is the collaborative approach that is so often talked about but so rarely evoked?  Where is the action that goes with the words?

If our Directors are feeling a little out of their depths they could try listening to what the people have been trying to tell them.

The Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD), at its regular meeting on Wednesday, August 1, 2012, unanimously endorsed the attached motion prepared by Director Bruce Fraser, Electoral Area B – Shawnigan Lake.

The motion will be forwarded to Environment Minister Terry Lake and his senior ministry officials along with a request for further meetings in order to work toward “harmonization and strengthening” of provincial regulations and CVRD land use bylaws to prohibit the deposition of contaminated soils on land in designated community watersheds.

The motion specifically:

• Opposes the deliberate permitting of the deposition of contaminated soils in watersheds used for domestic water supply;
• Comes out against the South Island Aggregates’ application for the use of contaminated soils in their mine reclamation project;
• Calls for the preparation of a new CVRD bylaw that prohibits the deposition of contaminated soils or waste in a designated community watershed; and
• Calls for the continuing of the collaborative relationship with the provincial Ministry of Environment in order that provincial regulations and CVRD bylaws can be “harmonized and strengthened” to prevent future risks to community domestic water supplies.

For Further Information Contact:

Tom Anderson            250.746.2601
General Manager

Planning & Development Department

Bruce’s long Board Resolution

We have learned that, regardless of statements made either privately or publicly by CAO Warren Jones and various Directors, the CVRD has always had the power to put an end to this threat to our drinking water. The question is, “Will they?”

The fact that the CVRD holds the key to stopping this atrocity is not a new concept. Many members of the community have put forth the suggestion that with the creation of appropriate bylaws and enforcement of existing bylaws, the CVRD Board could exercise the powers granted to them through the Province and protect the water, the environment and the quality of life in Shawnigan Lake. These suggestions have been presented to CVRD Board members on more than one occasion.

They have been posted on multiple websites. We have engaged our MLA’s office to deliver these suggestions to our CVRD Board chair. We have tried everything short of picketing Ingram Street with small, golden-haired children and cute dogs wearing placards to get this message through.

Now, in the eleventh hour, what will the CVRD Board do? Will they start doing the very thing that they were elected to do? Will they waste more time with mumbling words of collaboration and preservation of goodwill? History rarely sheds a favorable light on collaborators!

Will they roll up their sleeves, swallow their pride and start working with the people that are trying desperately to help them? For the good of our community, let’s hope that this time political agendas are not going to trump health and safety.

Original post “How the CVRD can protect our water” posted June 30
To Dump or not to Dump found at brentatthefocus.blogspot.ca
The CVRD Can Act To Protect Shawnigan’s Watershed. But Will They? found at Cowichan Conversations by Richard Hughes

Please note that after careful evaluation of the application, notification and consultation activities conducted to date by the proponent, the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE), MoE has come to the conclusion that a reasonable end date for the notification period required under the Public Notification Regulation could be set for August 20.

Key public notification and consultation milestones are listed below:
• April 26 – Letters sent to First Nation groups by MoE
•  May 5 – Information meeting held with neighbours located in proximity to South Island Aggregates (SIA) quarry site by SIA
• May 9 – Notice posted in the Cowichan News Leader and in the British Columbia Gazette
• May 10 – Billboard installed at the entrance of SIA quarry site
• May 31 – Open house held at the Shawnigan Lake Community Centre by SIA
• July 12 – Public meeting held at the Kerry Park arena by the CVRD
• July 20 – Formal notifications sent to agencies and public interest groups by SIA

This date is also based on availability of technical information regarding SIA’s application which is available on SIA website (www.sialtd.ca<http://www.sialtd.ca>)  and considered sufficient to prompt questions and comments from notified parties.

SIA has issued formal notification letters to agencies and public interest groups on July 20, 2012, which constitutes the last notification activity and therefore the date at which the 30-day public notification period begins.  However, a decision on this application is not expected to be made immediately after that date and other questions or comments may be taken into consideration until a decision is effectively made by the Director.

Again, we encourage you and all other members with interests in the SIA application to continue to inform yourselves on the proposal and to make your specific concerns known to the proponent and MoE.

Please do not hesitate to contact me as needed at (250) 751-7245.
Yours truly,
Luc Lachance, P.Eng Sr. Environmental Protection Officer Ministry of Environment West Coast Region ph (250) 751-7245 fax (250) 751-3103 2080A Labieux Road Nanaimo BC V9T 6J9

In 2007, CVRD staff recommended that the CVRD not try to write a SOIL REMOVAL AND DEPOSIT BYLAW saying the Ministry would never accept it. In 2009, Metchosin passed such a bylaw and the Ministry accepted it.

During the OCP steering committee meetings, CVRD staff refused to add soil removal and deposit recommendations to the OCP. They also refused to add restrictions on gravel pits and quarries, although the CVRD has successfully defended such restrictions in the BC Supreme Court. Is the CVRD willing to challenge the Provincial government only when it affects Cobble Hill?

Ministry of Environment officials appear to be pleading with the CVRD to do something to protect their residents.“Regional districts have mechanisms to control land use through zoning and bylaws.” They seem to be begging the regional district to put zoning bylaws in place to prevent these facilities. Then they will be able to say to proponents – “We would like to consider your proposal, but unfortunately the CVRD Bylaws do not allow such a facility”.

Rather than bylaws that shield us from this nuisance, our new OCP does nothing to manage aggregate extraction or fill dumping. Our new bylaws, still in the draft stage, do nothing to control aggregate extraction or dumping. In fact, they appear to encourage it.

Not just in Shawnigan. The proposed South Cowichan (a mythical entity, similar in its imaginary nature to the Eco Depot and hopefully, the SIA contaminated waste facility) Bylaws contain no restrictions on Soil Removal or Deposit. They contain no controls on aggregate extraction and processing on Industrial or Rural Resource zoned lands (there are no longer any Forestry zoned lands).

With no help from the CVRD, the residents must confront this challenge on their own.

The problem we have is that a mediated solution does us no good. The middle ground between a contaminated waste facility and no contaminated waste facility is not half a waste facility. It is not a not-too-badly-contaminated waste facility.

The only acceptable outcome is NO facility at all.

Please visit Brent’s blog to read his entire post and his other insightful entries that address many of the issues that Shawnigan Lake residents are facing.

Hundreds of residents were given the opportunity to tell our government representatives that they would not permit risking the safety of our drinking water or compromising the Shawnigan Lake eco system.  If our local government was in any doubt as to how this community felt before the meeting they surely aren’t now.

We are looking forward to working together for a better community now and into the future.

Subject: Re: Upcoming Public Meeting

Hi Steve, I notice a number of misconceptions on your site about the CVRD public meeting on the 12th. The purpose of the meeting is to ensure a proper opportunity for public review and input on the SIA application, an opportunity that was not adequately provided at their open house. As you may remember, the participants in the open house called for such a meeting and I promised then and there that one would be held. Once proper due process has been followed and the Shawnigan public has been heard in open session, it will then be appropriate for the CVRD to take an official position on the application, not before. Please have a look at my website and the video clip which explains this at some length.

The meeting will provide for presentations from MOE, MEM, SIA with Q&A’ for each. This will be followed by an opportunity for public comment. If the meeting does not provide sufficient time for all who wish to speak, then the CVRD will convene a second meeting, likely in September so that the holiday season does not prevent full attendance. All this will be recorded and then uploaded to the CVRD web site for all to see and forwarded to the relevant ministries dealing with the SIA application. The CVRD is on record as requesting sufficient time for thorough public comment, as illustrated by Luc LaChance’s letter also on my website. Recently, Chair Hutchins and I visited with you to listen to your concerns and to catch up with your historical record of the Stebbings Road area. Your site suggests that your local government is not representing the interests of the Shawnigan public, but this is clearly not the case. Elected officials are expected to follow fair due process and this applies to SIA as well as any other business or member of the public that places a legal application before government.

The documents that you recently uploaded indicate the fact that the CVRD has been trying for some time to gain control of dumping in our watershed – something that is occurring at many sites in both the watershed and elsewhere in the region, not just those owned by SIA. The provincial government has up until recently refused to grant those powers to the Regional District, despite many such attempts over the last decade to introduce the necessary by-laws. The recent agreement with Minister Lake has at least opened the door for a serious discussion on how to increase legal local controls in a way that is consistent with provincial regulations.

Among other things, we have recently completed a further independent legal survey of the park boundary to determine the current facts about encroachment. With members of the Shawnigan Watershed Roundtable, CVRD Parks staff, and Shawnigan Parks Commission members I have recently walked the SIA perimeter and its confluence with Shawnigan Creek for a diligent first hand look at current conditions. There is much more to do and the CVRD is committed to protection of the Shawnigan watershed.

Regards, Bruce.

This is our response:

Dear Director Fraser;

What are the misconceptions about the July 12th meeting on our site Director Fraser? The public response has been as clear as it was for the proposed eco depot project. Why is it that the CVRD and in this case yourself have such difficulty reading the mood of the community? The community does not support the notion of continuing to pollute our watershed and providing a forum for SIA to sell their application to the province.  This is not what the community wanted.

You seem mesmerized by the process you outline, but at odds with a basic meeting with you and perhaps a few other Directors to hear and speak with us, your resident taxpaying voters. We want you to hear and speak and be accountable to us not the applicant who wishes to cash in on an opportunity to dump up to 5 million tons of pollutants in our watershed.   As I understand it the Province of BC is still the determining body, is it not?

You refer to the Shawnigan public being heard in open session on this matter before the CVRD can take a position. Are you making this stuff up Director Fraser? This newfound concern about the CVRD sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of the public is touching but what are you talking about?  If this is a public meeting, not entirely uncommon when applicants are considering zoning applications with the CVRD, then I must ask just who is paying for the meeting. Who is paying for the advertising? Why are you having all these ministry people in attendance? If you are going to have provincial people at the meeting bring Ministers Coleman and Lake not staffers. We do not want to know how it works from their perspective, we want you and your cohorts to tell the province to deny any application that might be before them, that is all.

I followed your suggestion and went to your website and viewed your presentation.  Director Fraser you are confused. This is not a Public Hearing in spite of your statement on the video portion of your web site address. There is no set process here. This is made up by the CVRD for whatever reasons I do not know. We do not have to offer SIA an opportunity to speak to an application before the province. Why would we do that? You are advancing and defending a process which has no standing whatsoever.

The CVRD has opposed such dumping in the past why are you balking now? What has changed?

Yours truly

Steve and Jen
Shawnigan Creek Protection

CVRD Letter re: contaminated soil, March 2011

Ministry of Environment Letter

Survey Report

Aerial Survey

AUTHORIZED AMENDMENT_MINE AREA REMOVAL MAY 7 2012

Imagine our surprise and disappointment when first we saw this outside of Kerry Park and then we realized that more than six signs were stolen before we even finished putting the signs out.

We don’t feel that a dollar value can be placed on water safety and environmental protection but the reality is without the support and commitment from our local government the community is at a distinct disadvantage.

We are appealing to the over 1000 people that come to this website each month to tell your friends and neighbours about the meeting. Our strength is our united voices.