The B.C. government is failing to protect drinking water from increased risks that include climate change and industrial activities such as logging, auditor general Carol Bellringer found in a report released on Tuesday.

Bellringer’s independent audit zeroed in on the leadership roles of the health ministry and provincial health officer, saying accountability measures for safeguarding drinking water are “of grave concern.”

“We found that health and the PHO [provincial health officer] are not sufficiently protecting drinking water for British Columbians,” Bellringer told reporters at a news conference.

The health ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has no strategy to address those risks, the report concluded.

Risk of contamination increases in small water systems

The audit comes as communities around B.C. grapple with imminent plans for logging and other industrial activities in watersheds that supply their drinking, irrigation and, in some cases, fire-fighting water.

In the Regional District of Central Kootenay, at least seven communities face plans for logging in their watersheds.

They include the bucolic village of Glade, where residents have gone to court in an effort to protect their drinking water from logging on nearby mountain slopes that feed Glade Creek, which supplies much of the community of 300 with water.

In April, members of the Glade Watershed Protection Society were surprised and dismayed when B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan said they had no legal right to clean water.

“Do you have a right to clean water?” McEwan said in court. “I’d suggest you don’t … there just is nowhere in the law where you can look and say, ‘there it is — there’s my right. I have a right to clean water.’ ”

‘You can’t drink money’: Kootenay communities fight logging to protect their drinking water

Heather McSwan, a spokesperson for the Glade Watershed Protection Society, said she hopes the auditor general’s report will raise awareness about the need to safeguard drinking water in B.C. 

“Maybe there’ll be some positive action on getting it protected,” McSwan told The Narwhal. 

McSwan said the report should catch the eye of people who aren’t involved in the type of struggles facing Glade and other communities.

“They might say, ‘Hey, I wasn’t aware that protecting our drinking water was so difficult and that there was even a need to protect drinking water, that it wasn’t already protected by the legislation we have in B.C.’ ” 

B.C. has 4,800 known drinking water systems to regulate — far more than other provinces — and 90 per cent of them are classified as small water systems, serving less than 500 people, Bellringer pointed out.

“The risks of contamination are intensified in small water systems, where some communities may be challenged to afford sufficient water protection systems or to attract and retain qualified water treatment staff,” she told reporters.

No drinking water protection plans developed in last 16 years

Sonia Furstenau, Green Party MLA for Cowichan Valley, said the report highlights the need to take immediate action to protect drinking water.

“Communities across the province are experiencing the impacts of climate change and industrial activity on their water sources,” Furstenau said in a statement. “This is especially true of small, rural and Indigenous communities.

Bellringer’s report singled out the Comox Valley as one example of the government’s failure to protect drinking water. The Comox Lake is the only viable drinking water source for a community of 45,000, the report noted.

“The lake, however, has no restrictions on access and the shores are owned by a variety of private and public entities,” the report said.

In keeping with current legislation, the provincial health officer asked the health minister to establish a drinking water protection plan for the Comox Valley in 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018, Bellringer said.

“However, government still has not established a plan for the area,” she noted.

Bellringer’s audit found not a single drinking water protection plan has been established in the province over the past 16 years, since the B.C. government committed in 2002 to ensuring safe, reliable and accessible drinking water for all British Columbians.

Muddied waters: how clearcut logging is driving a water crisis in B.C.’s interior

Climate change affects water quality and quantity

Among the drinking water risk factors cited in the report are increasing demand from a growing population, recreation in source watersheds and the proximity of agriculture and livestock and range activities to drinking water sources.

“In rural and remote communities that are supplied by small water systems, these risks are amplified,” the report noted.

B.C.’s small drinking water systems serve approximately 480,000 British Columbians.

Yet actions to address risks in small water systems are “inadequate,” Bellringer concluded.

The report also found the quality and quantity of drinking water sources will be affected as climate change brings more wildfires along with more frequent and intense rainfall, flooding and severe droughts.

“The increase in frequency and intensity of these climatic events is expected to increase the need to upgrade drinking water treatment and distribution infrastructure,” it said.

“This is of particular concern in B.C., where most of the water infrastructure is over 50 years old, and aging equipment can be at risk of failure during climatic events.”

‘Constant vigilance’ of water systems necessary to protect public health

Bellringer told reporters the last known outbreak of waterborne illness in B.C. was in 2004.

“But a single event that contaminates the drinking water system can cause serious health impacts for numerous people. It’s estimated for every reported case of illness hundreds may go unreported,” she said.

“Constant vigilance of our drinking water is necessary to protect public health.”

The audit did not include drinking water systems on First Nations reserves because they fall under the jurisdiction of the First Nations Health Authority, Bellringer said.

The health ministry’s leadership role is “extremely complex and challenging” because 23 different pieces of water protection legislation are parcelled out among various ministries, the report noted.

But the health ministry did not effectively coordinate the involvement of all the ministries and agencies involved and lacked a strategy for providing clear direction for drinking water protection, the report concluded.

While the ministry has taken some action to mitigate risks to drinking water, “more needs to be done,” Bellringer said in a statement.

“Specifically, the ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has not developed a strategy to address them.”

The audit found the health ministry did not follow through on a legislated mandate to provide updates about water protection in its annual service plans, while the provincial health officer did not demonstrate adequate oversight of drinking water protection officers.

Government not sufficiently informed about ongoing risks to drinking water

“We found that health and the PHO have not kept government sufficiently apprised of the ongoing risks to drinking water,” Bellringer said.

The audit also found that many of the committees formed to help protect drinking water have been disbanded. The health ministry failed to develop a strategic plan to provide clear direction on actions needed by the ministries and regional health authorities to improve drinking water protection, it concluded.

The ministry “has not been as vigilant about protecting our drinking water as it has been in the past,” Bellringer said, noting that the ministry’s leadership and coordination role has waned over time.

The provincial health officer was empowered to provide an annual report to the health ministry on actions taken to protect drinking water, “but this reporting has occurred infrequently,” the auditor general found.

Recommendations the provincial health officer made to various ministries and agencies in progress reports in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2015 “have seen limited or no progress,” the audit concluded.

The report makes eight recommendations to identify risks, improve oversight and monitor progress and trends.

Recommendations include a review of drinking water protection legislation and regulations, led by the health ministry, to identify risks and legislative gaps that may affect the government’s commitment to safeguarding drinking water.

The audit also recommends the health ministry identify risks related to source water protection, drinking water treatment, distribution and small water systems.

The audit will now go to the public accounts committee of the B.C. legislature, and the committee will call witnesses. The health ministry will be required to provide an action plan for the committee.

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Lawsuits designed to financially cripple small organizations or intimidate citizens into silence will no longer be allowed under the provincial government’s new anti-SLAPP legislation, welcomed as a step forward for free speech in B.C.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are usually launched by powerful corporations or organizations to threaten and silence critics and discourage others from speaking out. Under the new legislation, which will be debated next fall, the courts can be asked to dismiss lawsuits that are designed to prevent the defendant from speaking freely on a matter of public interest.

Currently, the onus is on the person being sued to show that the organization suing them intends to silence legitimate criticism.

Attorney General David Eby, who presented the Protection of Public Participation Act in the Legislature Tuesday, said British Columbians deserve the freedom to peacefully engage in public debate without fear of unreasonable and financially ruinous legal action.

“Lawsuits that serve to silence and financially exhaust those exercising their right of expression exploit our legal system and only serve those with significantly deeper pockets,” Eby said.

Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, one of the organizations that has been appealing to the NDP government for legislation, said SLAPPs have become common in B.C.

“Many British Columbians and organizations in this province have been harassed, intimidated and litigated into silence by stronger parties with spurious — and in some cases outrageous — legal threats,” Paterson said.

The legislation, which is based on similar rules in Ontario, will allow SLAPP suits to be identified quickly, avoiding long and expensive trials, he said.

Even cases which are ultimately thrown out of court, or which never get to court, can be financially ruinous, pointed out Joe Foy, national campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. That organization was dragged through the courts by Taseko Mines Ltd. for five years.

The company launched the defamation case after the Wilderness Committee suggested on its website that opponents of Taseko’s proposed New Prosperity Mine, near Williams Lake, should comment on the federal government’s environmental review process.

“Those with financial means should not be able to use their means to limit the voices of others. You cannot put a price on free speech.”

The case was finally tossed out of court, with the B.C. Court of Appeal and the B.C. Supreme Court agreeing that the lawsuit was launched to silence critics on a matter of public importance, but there were still financial ramifications, Foy said.

The cost of insurance for directors and officers of the group soared from $2,000 to $7,500 a year — even though the Wilderness Committee was completely innocent — and staff time, spent collecting information and evidence, racked up a major bill, Foy said.

“All we were doing was encouraging our supporters to comment and, suddenly, you are stuck in a room with an 800 pound gorilla called Taseko who wants your blood,” said Foy, adding that, initially, neither level of government would lift a finger to help.

“That’s why we really appreciate what the provincial government is doing,” he said.

The situation is even more intimidating for individuals who speak out against something such as a neighbourhood development and are immediately slapped with papers for saying what they think, Foy said.

That was the case in Shawnigan Lake, when residents who spoke out against a contaminated landfill site, operated by South Island Resource Management Ltd., received legal letters.

Cowichan Valley Green MLA Sonia Furstenau, then a Cowichan Valley Regional District director, led the opposition to the contaminated soil site and, on Tuesday, she welcomed the government’s anti-SLAPP legislation.

“A vibrant public sphere is one of the fundamental components of a healthy democracy and no one should be afraid to voice their opinion on the issues that matter to them,” Furstenau said in an emailed response to a question from The Narwhal.

“Those with financial means should not be able to use their means to limit the voices of others. You cannot put a price on free speech.”

West Coast Environmental Law staff lawyer Erica Stahl said the legislation will go a long way towards strengthening democracy in B.C.

“If a corporation drags you to court for speaking out, you may spend years fighting the case — distracting you from the real public issues that need to be discussed and resulting in immense financial and emotional costs,” Stahl said.

B.C. previously had a brief experience with anti-SLAPP legislation.

In 2001 the former NDP government introduced Canada’s first such legislation, but it was repealed five months later by the newly elected BC Liberal government, which argued it would lead to a protest culture.

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Conspicuously absent from the B.C. government’s 19-page budget speech on Tuesday was any mention of the largest publicly funded project in the province’s history.

Nor did the government devote a single word to the $10.7 billion Site C dam during last week’s Speech from the Throne, which presented the NDP’s “affordability” agenda for the coming year.

Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau said the avoidance of Site C appears to be deliberate.

“To not talk about it, as it’s moving forward, seems to be more than just an oversight,” Furstenau told DeSmog Canada.

It suggests that “the government does not want to bring this to the forefront, does not want to be talking about it, does not want to bring this to people’s minds,” she said.

Site C’s only mention in a stack of budget documents — including beefy backgrounders and a lengthy news release — was a line item at the bottom of page 47 in the 150-page budget and fiscal plan, which details spending priorities right through to 2021:

“Site C power project

Cost to December 31, 2017: $2.13 billion

Estimated cost to complete: $8.58 billion.”

It was a curious portrayal in light of the budget’s hallmark items.

A “striking” omission from the budget speech

Consider this. Site C will cost British Columbians more than ten times the amount of the “historic” $1 billion child care investment announced Tuesday by Finance Minister Carole James, a pledge that child care advocates described as “monumental.”

It’s almost $4 billion more than the largest investment in housing in B.C.’s history, a budget announcement of $7 billion spread out over 10 years that was widely praised by housing advocates.

And it’s more than 50 times the amount of money — $200 million — the budget devotes to a three-year investment in housing, child care and skills training dedicated to indigenous priorities, as part of its stated commitment to adopting and implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Yet no mention of Site C. Nada.

Ken Boon, president of the Peace Valley Landowner Association, representing 70 property owners who will be affected by Site C, called the omission “striking.”

“One would think that the recent decision to proceed with a $10.7 billion dam would warrant attention, especially after the poor economic rationale of the project was exposed by the B.C. Utilities Commission,” Boon told DeSmog Canada.

“Even just the $2 billion increase given to the [Site C] project budget on December 11th is larger than almost any other budget measure.”

The Site C dam has barely been mentioned in the legislature since it resumed sitting last week, a gap the Green Party promised to redress in the coming weeks when its three MLAs have an opportunity to grill the NDP during ministry budget estimates.

The Greens plan to “focus on that elephant in the room and to really hold the government to account for its decision” to proceed with Site C, in order to determine if there are increasing reasons to question that decision, said Furstenau.

The latest Site C dam development

Furstenau and her colleagues might want to start by zeroing in on the latest perplexing Site C development, a last minute major design change that nobody saw coming.

The change is so significant it requires BC Hydro to seek an amendment to its environmental assessment certificate for the project.

In January, BC Hydro notified the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office it plans to submit an application to change the design for Site C’s generating station and spillways.

“This isn’t a minor kind of amendment,” said former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, who was also the CEO of Manitoba Hydro and Ontario Hydro.

“I have never seen anything like this taking place. What I find just shocking is that these changes would take place at the last second.”

That notification came only weeks after BC Hydro announced it had selected the preferred proponent for a major contract to build the station and spillways, a consortium that gives a 30 per cent share in the Site C venture to the state-owned China Communications Construction Co. Ltd.

It’s unclear at this point if the design changes are related to ongoing geotechnical issues that have slowed construction, and how they might impact Site C’s accelerating cost and timeline.

In a letter to the environmental assessment office, BC Hydro described the changes as “improvements” to optimize capacity, minimize environmental risks and improve safety.

BC Hydro also noted that the new design is “not expected to change fish injury or mortality.”

Up to 40 per cent of bull trout, a species vulnerable to extinction, are expected to die in Site C’s turbines while attempting to migrate downstream.

That’s after the fish are anesthetized and transported upstream past the dam in trucks to reach their spawning grounds, at a projected cost of $127 million over 100 years. (That same amount of money would build nine new elementary schools in the Lower Mainland.)

BC Hydro also told the environmental assessment officethe design changes will “reduce the likelihood” of reservoir levels topping maximum levels “under extreme flow scenarios.”

The certificate amendment process, which could take months, will require consultations with First Nations, the federal government, local government and may even warrant public consultation, according to the B.C. environmental assessment office.

Eliesen said even if there are reasonable grounds for making the unexpected design changes he is surprised BC Hydro did not submit the changes to last fall’s independent review of the project, when any potential impact on Site C’s finances and timeline would have undergone independent scrutiny.

“For the past five years, there’s been a picture of what the generation station and spillways looked like and now that’s been changed,” he said.

In a recent affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court in support of a new legal case against Site C by two Treaty 8 First Nations, Eliesen said that the “necessary experience and due diligence rigour required for managing a major hydro project such as Site C is deficient among the executive at BC Hydro,” noting it has been more than 30 years since BC Hydro constructed a major generating station.

Are we back to BC Liberal-era secrecy on Site C?

Before the former Liberal government changed the law to exempt Site C from independent oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC), the commission would have monitored ongoing planning expenditures related to the project.

For years, the NDP said that Site C should be scrutinized by the utilities commission.

Yet, instead of restoring full BCUC oversight of Site C, the NDP has announced the creation of a new “Site C Assurance Board.”

The government says the board will provide “enhanced oversight to future contract procurement and management, project deliverables, environmental integrity, and quality assurance — all within the mandate of delivering the project on time and budget,” according to the government.

But the NDP has not yet determined to what extent the board’s findings will be made public, according to a statement emailed to DeSmog Canada this week by the B.C. energy ministry.

The composition and terms of reference for the Site C Assurance Board are being finalized by BC Hydro and the government and will be announced in the coming weeks, said the ministry.

Boon said he finds it disturbing that the board’s full discoveries might be withheld from the public, given its stated purpose is to enhance oversight of Site C to deliver the project on time and within its revised budget.

“How will the public know that is indeed happening if their work is done in secrecy?” asked Boon.

“Secrecy is what happened under the BC Liberals with this project, and it took a BCUC review to finally reveal just how bad things were. I personally believe the only way we will get true transparency on this project is if whistleblowers come forward and tell their story to the media while keeping their identity protected.”

(If you have a story to tell, you can get in touch with DeSmog Canada’s team of journalists here.)

How does Site C square with the NDP’s affordability agenda?

Notably, the NDP’s only reference to hydro rates in the budget rollout was to restate the party’s earlier commitment to seek a one-year freeze.

Eliesen and other experts expect hydro rates will climb significantly once the Site C dam becomes operational, supposedly in just six years.

The NDP has said Site C’s surplus power would be sold on the spot market, likely at rates far lower than it costs to produce it.

That leaves B.C.’s hydro customers to make up the difference — at the same time that they begin to pay for Site C’s construction cost, which the BCUC warned could top $12.5 billion.

B.C. only needs to look east to gauge the affordability of large hydro dams compared to more flexible alternatives such as wind power.

The “boondoggle” Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador has added an average $1,800 to the annual hydro bills of every household in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The over-budget Keeyask Dam in northern Manitoba recently compelled Manitoba Hydro to ask for “exceptional” hydro rate increases that, if approved, will add $600 to an annual hydro bill of $1,000.

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Footage of bloody discharge being released into B.C.’s coastal waters from farmed-fish processing plants by photographer Tavish Campbell has made international headlines and prompted the promise of further investigation from both provincial and federal governments.

But critics say that while governments are eager to stem a wave of concerns arising from the footage, not enough is being done to protect B.C.’s threatened wild salmon populations from the threats of the farmed-salmon industry that stem from the use of open net pens.

In addition to the footage, Campbell collected samples of the discharge that laboratory testing found contained Piscene Reovirus, a disease carried in an estimated 80 per cent of Atlantic farmed salmon on the B.C. coast. The virus is linked to the presence of heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, a deadly condition found in B.C. wild salmon stocks.

B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman said the ministry dispatched inspectors to the Brown’s Bay processing plant near Campbell River to determine the contents of the effluent being released and take further samples if necessary.

“I think the bottom line for us is we want to make sure anything being dumped into our oceans is free of contaminants, fee of pathogens and not a threat to wild salmon,” Heyman told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

The Brown’s Bay processing plant received a discharge permit from the B.C. government in 1989, granting the company permission to release 28,000 litres of effluent every day. There are 109 fish processing plants in B.C.; if they are all releasing roughly the same as the Brown’s Bay plant, that’s ten Olympic swimming pools of effluent being released into B.C. waters daily.

The Brown’s Bay plant was inspected in 2013, and found to be out of compliance with the province’s environmental laws. According to Heyman no further inspection took place at the time.

The permit, which Heyman said does not reflect modern conditions and standards, is currently under review. He added there are older permits for additional fish processing plants the government will also place under review.

“We are looking at conditions that reflect today’s reality and today’s expectation and that’s that what is dumped in the ocean is clean and not a threat to wild salmon,” Heyman said. “So we’ll be looking at it from that perspective as well as from First Nations who are being consulted we’ll look at best practices around the world around discharges into the ocean.”

Bloodwater Not Only Threat Wild Salmon Face

Campbell said that while a review of B.C.’s out-of-date permits is warranted, the release of contaminated effluent is just one threat the farmed-salmon industry poses to wild salmon stocks.

“The bloodwater is certainly a point source for infection but if we get rid of the bloodwater the problem doesn’t go away because ultimately these juvenile wild fish are still swimming past the open net pens and picking up these viruses and diseases,” Campbell told DeSmog Canada.

Aaron Hill, ecologist and wild salmon policy analyst for the Watershed Wild Salmon Society, agreed.

“It’s really hard to quantify exactly where this wastewater discharge lands on the threat matrix but we know that salmon farms host a number of viruses and parasites that are transmitted to wild fish and harm wild fish,” Hill told DeSmog Canada.

“Many of our salmon populations are in really bad shape due to a number of factors,” Hill said, saying climate change is considered the number one threat to wild salmon.

“We can’t flip a switch and make the oceans more productive or make rivers cooler and safer for fish. But we can get these farms out of the ocean and onto land. We can stop bloody diseased waste from being piped into the water.”

Many of the companies operating farmed salmon open net pens in B.C. are Norwegian, the country behind many of the farmed salmon operations worldwide. Currently Norway does not allow for the discharge of fish processing waste into the ocean.

B.C.’s Environmental Monitoring and Enforcement Weak: Furstenau

British Columbia has a poor record of monitoring and enforcing its own environmental laws due to staff and budget cuts, according to Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau.

“While I appreciate the Minister of Environment’s immediate response to the videos, we need a government that works to proactively protect our environment, not one that waits for the public to prove that we’ve got a problem,” Furstenau said during Wednesday’s question period in the house.

“Is the minister going to expand his review to cover every plant that releases effluent into wild salmon habitat to ensure it’s not contaminated, or will Mr. Campbell need to keep testing the blood water?”

The B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is responsible for leases and tenures for fish farms. Ocean discharge permits are managed by the province’s environment ministry.

However, regulation and promotion of the aquaculture industry falls to federal jurisdiction under the Fisheries Act.

Heyman said his ministry has been in contact with Environment Canada as well as local First Nations to discuss the effluent permits and Campbell’s footage.

“It’s important that all parties with jurisdiction take a unified approach to protecting wild salmon. That’s our expectation and we hope the federal government will join us and work with us and First Nations to protect wild salmon.”

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said his ministry is also investigating the results of recent samples taken from the discharge pipes — and is open to potential changes under the Fisheries Act that would prevent the release of contaminants that could further threaten B.C.’s struggling wild salmon populations.

Campbell said he doesn’t see a way for open net fish farms and healthy wild salmon stocks to coexist. He hopes recent outrage over the outfall pipes will add to growing calls to move the aquaculture industry on land.

“I think the writing is on the wall for this industry. They can’t keep continuing to operate in the way they have been with open net pens in the water,” Campbell said.

“There’s too much opposition to it and there’s too much science saying if that’s going to happen we’re basically sacrificing our wild stocks.”

Permit 8124 – Brown Bay Fish Processing Plant by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

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A controversial proposal for a gravel mine at the mouth of a salmon-bearing creek on Howe Sound is a graphic illustration of a broken environmental assessment process — one that relies on science paid for by the proponent, say opponents of the Burnco Aggregate Project on McNab Creek.

“This project is going to impact one of only three estuaries in Howe Sound and it’s critical for salmon spawning habitat, but there is no independent data even on how many salmon are in the creek,” Tracey Saxby, marine scientist and volunteer executive director of the environmental organization My Sea to Sky, told DeSmog Canada.

The company plans to extract up to 1.6 million tonnes of gravel a year for 16 years, which would be shipped from a marine barge loading facility to company operations in Burnaby and Langley.

But Saxby says that since estuaries are vital for wild salmon it makes no sense to consider such a project without independent data, pointing out that residents are also concerned about noise, dust and barges travelling to and from the facility every other day.

Saxby is spearheading a campaign that has bombard Environment Minister George Heyman and Energy and Mines Minister Michelle Mungall with more than 2,600 letters asking them to stop the Burnco gravel mine and to rethink the environmental assessment process.

The group is calling for the government to undertake a review of the environmental assessment process for the gravel mine and for a “robust and fully independent baseline assessment of wild salmon populations in McNab Creek.”

Industry-Funded Science at Heart of Brunco Controversy

The Burnco gravel mine, which has been wending its way through the system for six years, is a clear example of what is wrong with the professional reliance model, Saxby said.

B.C.’s professional reliance system allows private companies and project proponents to hire biologists, engineers, geoscientists and other experts to assess environmental risks, instead of the work being done by government professionals or independent contractors hired by government.

It is a controversial self-regulating model, used extensively by the former BC Liberal government after cuts to the civil service, and has come under increasing scrutiny since the 2014 collapse of the Mount Polley tailings pond and a community battle over government approval of a contaminated soil facility above Shawnigan Lake.

Last month, Heyman ordered a review of the province’s professional reliance system, with a final report expected next spring.

Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau, who was at the centre of the Shawnigan Lake contaminated soil battle, has received 2,300 emails on the Burnco application in less than 24 hours.

That reaction to the proposal is an example of how professional reliance has undermined public trust, Furstenau said in an interview.

“This [gravel mine] is such a clearcut example,” she said.

A controversial gravel mine at the mouth of a #salmon-bearing creek in #HoweSound is an illustration of a broken environmental assessment process — one that relies on science paid for by the proponent, says @MySea2Sky https://t.co/gwHY0LZ91h #bcpoli @SoniaFurstenau

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 28, 2017

Review of B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Process Needed: Green Party MLA

“The review [of professional reliance] is necessary because, when people do not trust the government's process, it creates economic uncertainty and the impacts on the community are huge and sometimes devastating,” Furstenau told DeSmog Canada.

When the review recommendations are submitted, government must take them extremely seriously in an effort to address the profound lack of public trust, Furstenau said.

Saxby pointed out that the only information on salmon in McNab Creek came from a citizen scientist and, because of that, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans previously refused permits for a gravel mine.

“This is just one example of what happens and you have to question all the other decisions made by the Environmental Assessment Office,” Saxby said. “There’s a real lack of trust in the integrity of the process.”

“Public engagement is nothing more than a checkbox on a form and the process relies on science that is bought and paid for by the proponent,” she said. “It’s a clear conflict of interest.”

“There is no point engaging in this broken process so we decided to bypass the process and email the ministers directly…We need the province to press pause until it restores public trust in the process.”

A 30-day public comment period on the Burnco application ended this week and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency will release a report next month, followed by another public comment period.

Illustration: Carol Linnitt

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B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak announced today she is revoking a permit granted to Cobble Hill Holdings for the disposal of 5 million tonnes of contaminated waste in a local quarry in the Shawnigan Lake watershed, roughly 40 kilometres north of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

“Effective immediately, I am cancelling the waste discharge permit for Cobble Hill Holdings because the company has failed to meet the requirements outlined in my Jan. 27 letter,” the minister stated in a press release.

Polak said the company did not provide B.C. with proof of financial security in the form of a letter of credit by a determined deadline.

“Cobble Hill Holdings has been given multiple opportunities to respond to outstanding non-compliance and has repeatedly missed deadlines with respect to its permit requirements,” the minister stated.

The company was cited for non-compliance both this fall and last for failing to control water runoff from the waste site, a fact that heightened concerns of Shawnigan Lake residents who felt that the project would contaminate their drinking water.

Project Pushed Ahead Without Community Support

“We’re ecstatic about the permit being cancelled,” Shawnigan Lake resident and municipal official with the Cowichan Valley Regional District, Sonia Furstenau, told DeSmog Canada.

“I’ve never doubted for a second that we would win because this project was so outrageous.”

Fursteanu, who is now running for the region’s provincial Green Party seat in the upcoming election, says the fact that such an ill-fitting project could be forced on a community is what pushed her into politics.

“I’ve learned over the last two years how broken things really are at the provincial level.”

Furstenau said she can still remember an early public consultation meeting about the project where 299 out of 300 residents in attendance said they did not want hazardous waste in their community.

The permit granted the company the permission to dispose of industrial waste contaminated with furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials know to cause cancer, brain damage, and birth defects in humans.

“At that point the government should have said, ‘okay, this is not what the community wants.’”

Furstenau said the waste disposal project is emblematic of other major projects in B.C. where local community voices are left out of the decision-making process.

“We’re the canary in the coalmine. We’re what’s happening everywhere,” she said.

“It’s the story of the government that chose a business over the community, despite — and this is the part that drives me crazy — despite the overwhelming evidence that showed we were right.”

A report by independent experts found local drinking water aquifers had not been adequately mapped by the B.C. Ministry of Environment and that the movement of groundwater within rock formations surrounding the quarry was underestimated.

Torrance Coste, campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, said at both the provincial and federal level, environmental reviews of projects push community concerns aside.

“There is a purposeful exclusion of communities in environmental assessments and project assessments,” Coste told DeSmog Canada.

“The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office is a big culprit for this. The reviews really prioritize the needs of the proponents, of the company, over the needs of the community.”

Coste said there are obvious parallels with the Raven coal mine proposed for a small community on Vancouver Island.

“It was a no-brainer, stupid project with no community support but lots of support from the government. The company throughout that process was always given the benefit of the doubt.”

He said with the coal mine, as with the waste disposal site in Shawnigan Lake, community organizing and opposition eventually won out, but despite seemingly blind government support.

“You have two companies that are glaring incompetent, not following the rules, winning zero trust, zero social licence from the community and the government is sticking by them until the eleventh hour.”

“That’s not how government should operate.”

B.C. Cancels Controversial Hazardous Waste Disposal Permit in Shawnigan Lake Watershed https://t.co/iV6Kcx7vOu @SRA_INFO #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/mAeY38snwc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 24, 2017

Pulled Permit Could Be Used for Political Benefit

Coste said it’s also worth noting the B.C. government’s decision comes close to the provincial election.

“This is something the community has been working around the clock on since 2012 and now a couple of months before an election we see a move that ‘s going to be popular in the community.”

“That should be noted.”

Shawnigan Lake resident Georgia Collins also said the timing of the decision is notable given the importance of the Shawnigan Lake riding in the next provincial election.

“The B.C. government is clearly acting in their best interest. It’s just common sense not to have contaminated soil above a source of drinking water.”

“It’s hard to swallow because all along minister Polak said she absolutely could not interfere politically. It’s hard to swallow but of course we’ll take the win,” Collins said.

She added, “I really hope in all of this that people are able to see that it is the product of a community effort. I do fear that it’s one of those things you could take and spin for your own political benefit.”

Coste said it’s ultimately the government that holds the keys to major projects, meaning they always have the capacity to pull permits.

“That goes for Site C, for Kinder Morgan, old-growth logging and all sorts of activities that are occurring without social licence.”

The government has been preoccupied with delivering on it’s “getting to yes” tagline, but “it should be about doing what’s right for communities,” he said.

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The steady stream of trucks filled with contaminated waste that have been making their way to the small community of Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island for the last 10 months will come to a stop today after the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the province erred in granting a waste disposal permit for 460 Stebbings Road.   The B.C. Supreme Court ruled “a contaminated soil treatment facility is not a permitted use on the property” after finding the provincial Ministry of Environment granted a waste discharge permit to South Island Aggregates in August 2013 that violated local bylaws.   The court ordered an immediate injunction preventing South Island Aggregates from dumping more contaminated material.   “I’m just ecstatic,” Sonia Furstenau, elected representative of Shawnigan Lake with the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD), told DeSmog Canada about the ruling.   “I’m overjoyed.”   In 2015 the CVRD filed a lawsuit against the permit, which granted the company permission to dump 5 million tonnes of contaminated soil in a local gravel quarry.

According to the permit, the waste could contain furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials known to cause cancer, brain damage and birth defects in humans.

The quarry is located approximately five kilometres uphill from Shawnigan Lake, a source of drinking water for 7,500 year-round residents. The population swells to 12,000 in the summer months. 

Residents of Shawnigan Lake aggressively opposed the project since it was first proposed in 2012, citing concerns over the potential contamination of drinking water.   “From the very beginning nobody thought the provincial government would approve this. It just seemed too crazy,” Fursteanau, a resident of Shawnigan Lake and organizer with the Save Shawnigan Water campaign, said.   She added today’s decision comes just over one year after the community lost its case with the B.C. Environmental Appeal Board (EAB).   “It’s ironic,” Furstenau mused, “I studied medieval history and it’s a year and a day today since the EAB decision and that was the period of punishment in the middle ages — you’d be exiled for a year and a day.”   “So our exile in Shawnigan is over.”

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The community of Shawnigan Lake is awaiting an additional decision from the B.C. Court of Appeal that seeks to overturn the Environmental Appeal Board ruling. In that case the CVRD and the Shawnigan Residents Association are arguing the permit approval process was corrupted due to a leaked profit sharing agreement between the company and the engineering firm hired to provide geotechnical analysis of the project.   “I’m hoping for another successful outcome,” Furstenau said.   “We are on the side of light and justice, on the side of truth and on the side of protecting drinking water, which all governments should protect.”

In an e-mailed statement the B.C. Ministry of Environment said "staff will need to review the decision to fully understand its impacts before we can provide further comment."*   Shawnigan Lake resident Georgia Collins said the Supreme Court’s decision has her “over the moon.”   “It’s literally the best day of my life,” she said over the phone. “I don’t know what to do with my self. I just went outside and screamed in the happiest way possible.”   Collins said the ruling is important because it upholds local bylaws and zoning restrictions over and above permits granted by provincial ministries.   “I have very little faith in the provincial government now,” Collins said. “There was such a failure of process”   Collins added she would still like to see the Ministry of Environment’s permit overturned by the B.C Court of Appeal.   “I think it needs to be shown that the process was faulty, that there was fraud and that the community was right in what it was fighting for.”   She added: “I know all kinds of appeals can be made, but right now I’m going to celebrate this.”   Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, congratulated the community, saying the court decision “is a vindication of their concerns.”   "I want to recognize the hard work of Shawnigan Lake residents in coming together as a community and standing up for their rights in the face of government inaction.”

"I look forward to reviewing the ruling and working with local politicians and residents to ensure that we continue to move this issue forward in a way that protects the rights of the Shawnigan Lake community," Weaver said in a statement.   The B.C. Supreme Court did not order the company to remove contaminated soil already deposited at the site but indicated such matters will be handled by the Ministry of Environment and the Environmental Appeal Board.

*Updated to include comment from the Ministry of Environment.

Image: Protesters block trucks loaded with contaminated soil. Photo by Laura Colpitts.

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Residents of Vancouver Island’s Shawnigan Lake are currently in B.C.’s Supreme Court fighting a waste discharge permit that will allow five million tonnes of contaminated soil to be dumped in their watershed over the next 50 years.

The ongoing case marks the third legal challenge the community has brought against the B.C. Ministry of Environment for granting the hazardous waste disposal permit to company South Island Aggregates.

The feeling of betrayal in the community is palpable, where frustrations with B.C.’s permit granting process and seeming close connection with industry are running at an all time high.

Sonia Furstenau, Cowichan Valley Regional District elected official for Shawnigan Lake, said people in the community have voiced their opposition to the project since day one.

Shawnigan Lake residents fought to prevent the original permit from being granted in 2013 and, when it was granted, challenged it through the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB). The community is now in the B.C. Supreme Court where a judicial review of the EAB’s ruling, which was favourable to the project proponent, is currently underway.

The Cowichan Valley Regional District is also fighting a separate legal battle, arguing the region’s zoning rules don’t allow for the dumping of hazardous waste.

Furstenau said she hopes the judicial review will out the community on a new trajectory.

“So we have a judge looking at all that evidence which was weighed so heavily against this site going forward,” she said. “I hope the judge is going to give us the ruling this community deserves to have.”

She said a win like that could really “help us keep the momentum moving forward.”

“There’s no relenting until the permit is revoked and the soil that’s been dumped already is removed. That cannot sit in our watershed. We are not going to let it stay.”

“I’m an advocate for justice and I always have been,” Furstenau said, “but it’s always been global issues, or climate change, or hunger or poverty — things that are a little bit removed.”

“To have it be so personal is very different and yet I’m motivated by the same things: justice, fairness and what’s right, what’s wrong.”

Right to Healthy Environment Proactive, Provides Access to Justice

Alaya Boisvert, lead for the David Suzuki Foundation’s Blue Dot movement, said if communities like Shawnigan Lake had a more definite right to clean water, it could change the way they engage with government permitting processes.

“We believe all Canadians have the right to a healthy environment which means — in addition to having the right to breathe fresh air, eat safe food, enjoy a stable climate — they fundamentally have the right to clean water,” Boisvert said. “It’s of critical importance that we have laws to substantiate those rights.”

Boisvert said currently Canada has a disconnected patchwork of environmental laws and regulations, “which do not recognize, fulfill and protect Canadians’ right to a healthy environment.”

“That’s a problem at all levels of government,” she added.

The David Suzuki Foundation, along with legal partner Ecojustice, is currently campaigning for a legislative change that would embed the right to a healthy environment within the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Boisvert said giving Canadians substantive environmental rights could change the way decisions are made about things like hazardous waste disposal.

“This would mean Canadians have access to adequate and safe waste management, which is an issue that is front and centre in the Shawnigan Lake situation.”

“It will also give Canadians procedural rights that include the right to know if there is pollution or contaminants being released in your environment.”

If that were the case, a fundamental right to a healthy environment would mean you would have the right to participate in environmental decision-making about those contaminants, Boisvert said.

“This is also relevant to the Shawnigan Lake situation where citizens have had long-standing concerns about the environmental impact assessment, about the quality and stability of … the infrastructure that is handling the waste disposal.”

A fundamental right to clean water might also give communities more legal standing to challenge decisions after the fact. “It’s also about access to justice,” Boisvert said.

“If there are cases where the environmental rights of citizens are being violated, it’s critically important that citizens are able to seek legal recourse for that, have their rights protected, fulfilled and respected.”

The Cowichan Valley Regional District is one of the more than 100 municipalities in Canada that have passed resolutions recognizing a citizen’s right to a healthy environment.

Legal Challenges Costly

Celine Trojand, community organizer with democracy-advocacy organization Dogwood Initiative, said the right to a healthy environment could compliment the battle for community self-determination that is currently being waged across the province in places like Shawnigan Lake, near the Site C Dam, or in the Walbran Valley’s old-growth forests.

“I think at the municipal, provincial, or federal level it would give communities something to point to that could back up their advocacy work,” Trojand said.

She added, however, that legal protections may not be enough without “boots on the ground” activism that ensures those rules are actually enforced.

“The policy is good if there is political will or a constituency organizing around seeing that law or policy enacted and enforced, because otherwise there are loopholes and it will be back to business as usual.”

Trojand said the way B.C. handles resource and development decisions is somewhat “backwards.”

“A company comes in and their sense of accountability is not to people who live in that community,” she said. “When they have a proposal to put forward they advance it, get the support of government and, if they’re able to, go through the hoops to get the support of the community.”

“If the process were that the community needed to be part of the proposal creation first, then we wouldn’t run into this cycle of communities feeling like their interests aren’t being represented at the government level — or anywhere really.”

Trojand said legal challenges — like those currently ongoing against the Site C Dam, Northern Gateway pipeline, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, and waste disposal in Shawnigan Lake — are expensive and time consuming.

“It’s a long road to walk,” she said.

“However if a legal approach is backed up by a political approach in terms of applying pressure on decision makers and building a grassroots constituency that can organize and mobilize in key moments on an issue — in combination those things are really effective.”

Trojand added whether you’re fighting legal battles in the courts or working on developing stronger policies, like the right to a healthy environment, community participation “hasn’t been made very easy.”

“It’s not often clear to the average voter or citizen how to engage with either of those institutions.”

She added: ”That’s really what’s exciting, I think, about all of these very local community concerns really starting to take centre stage in B.C. as people are seeing that if they become activated on those issues and activated in their local communities they can see the change.”

“Local people are catalyzing around an issue, trying to trigger both legal and political processes, to combat the industry-driven status quo,” she said.

Image:  Shaw Creek near Shawnigan Lake, located below South Island Aggregates sites 21 and 23.* Photo provided by the Shawnigan Residents Association.

* Caption updated January 15, 2016 10:25am.

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As 2015 drew to a close and families across the country planned for New Year festivities, Sonia Furstenau was busy trying to figure out how many officials, journalists and photographers she could get up in a helicopter on January 6 if she divided the day into 30-minute departure times.

Furstenau, an elected representative for the Cowichan Valley Regional District, is a resident of Shawnigan Lake where a protracted battle to keep contaminated waste out of a local watershed is gaining new momentum.

Along with other members of the Shawnigan community and the Save Shawnigan Water campaign, Furstenau arranged to get elected representatives and media up in the air above Shawnigan Lake and, a mere five kilometres uphill, above a nearby contaminated waste site.

If it was going to take a day’s worth of helicopter rides to generate media attention for her community’s plight, then, well, “get to the choppa.”

Four years ago, Furstenau agreed to fill a one-year teaching position at Dwight School Canada, a prestigious international boarding school located on a sprawling 23-acre campus on Shawnigan Lake. The alpine lake setting and small, friendly community won her family over immediately.

“We moved here by accident,” Furstenau said with a laugh, adding her family agreed to give the school one year before returning to Victoria. During that first year in Shawnigan, however, her blended family of seven began to put down permanent roots.

“We fell in love with the lake, with the community and the Cowichan Valley.”

But as Furstenau was eyeing Shawnigan as the perfect place to settle down and raise her children, the B.C. government and waste disposal company South Island Aggregates (SIA) had identified the area for something entirely different.

Shawnigan Lake. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

In 2012, SIA, owned by parent company Cobble Hill Holdings Ltd., applied for a permit to dump 100,000 tonnes of contaminated waste soil into a local quarry located in the headwaters of Shawnigan Lake, a local source of drinking water for the 7,500 permanent residents of Shawnigan Lake. During the summer months, that number balloons to 12,000.

The B.C. Ministry of Environment granted SIA a 50-year permit, allowing the company to dump a total of 5 million tonnes of industrial waste containing furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials know to cause cancer, brain damage, and birth defects in humans.

The landfill site is flanked by streams that flow downhill into the Shawnigan Lake watershed.

SIA maintains the site is cradled in a 75-foot layer of nearly impermeable bedrock. The company estimates it would take approximately 103,000 years for contaminants to reach local groundwater and migrate into Shawnigan Lake.

South Island Aggregates' landfill site. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

SIA based these estimates on the geotechnical work of Active Earth Engineering. In the summer of 2015 a document was anonymously provided to the Shawnigan Residents Association that showed SIA and Active Earth Engineering signed a profit sharing contract for the 50-year lifespan of the landfill. SIA maintains the agreement was never acted on and eventually abandoned.

Yet the community is arguing the project review process was corrupted and that the B.C. Ministry of Environment, as well as the Environmental Appeal Board through which the community sought to have the permit pulled, relied too heavily on the expertise of Active Earth — a company they say had a clear conflict of interest.

A judicial review in the B.C. Supreme Court began on Monday, January 11 in Victoria. The review is expected to take two weeks to complete.

“It doesn’t take long to understand why this community is up in arms and so determined to fight what is going on here,” Furstenau said.

“Putting a contaminated landfill on a mountain at the headwaters of your drinking watershed above the lake that is the heart of your community is insanity. We do not accept this and we never will.”

Up on the mountain during the January 6 protest Furstenau’s sentiment seemed widespread.

On that cold morning nearly 500 residents gathered outside the gates of SIA’s private facility to prevent the latest shipment of contaminated soil from reaching the landfill site. Protesters held signs that read “pull the permit” and “Save Shawnigan Water” and children built snowmen in front of a line of blockaded work trucks.

“I think almost anyone can tell you this doesn’t on the surface seem to be logical,” Steve Housser, Shawnigan resident and former CBC journalist, said outside the landfill site.

Protesters at the landfill site, January 6, 2015. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

“The government says the science says it’s okay,” Housser said. “Unfortunately that science was bought and paid for by SIA.”

Housser who ran as a BC Liberal candidate in the Cowichan Valley riding during the last provincial election said revelations about the profit-sharing agreement between SIA and Active Earth engineers “completely undercuts their independence, their professional integrity and almost makes a mockery of the word science.”

He added the community does not feel it had a legitimate role to play in the decision-making process.

A "Save Our Shawnigan Water" sign sits on the site of the contaminated soil landfill, January 6. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

“Any say we had was ignored,” Housser said, adding the community has sent in a 15,500 signature petition, demonstrated at the legislature and held multiple rallies. “I don’t know what the hesitation is to stop this thing.”

“If it can be done to us, if somebody thinks they can dump toxic, contaminated waste into a watershed in Shawnigan, who’s next?” he said.

Dwight Canada School student Dimitri Monti-Browning also attended the protest along with a handful of classmates.

“I feel that a lot of the Shawnigan Lake community and a lot of people in B.C. and on Vancouver Island really care about Shawnigan Lake and don’t want to ruin this beautiful place,” Monti-Browning said.

He added the night before the event he was with his grandmother, who owns a home on Shawnigan Lake Road. “I went over to her house last night and she was crying because we don’t want to lose our water and as I said before this beautiful place.”

“We want to save our water,” he said.

Dwight School Canada student Dimitri Monti-Browning, centre right, at the protest with classmates. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

Calvin Cook, president of the Shawnigan Resident’s Association, said the community has a lot of legitimate concerns about the risk of seismic events, like the December 29 4.7 magnitude earthquake that shook houses in Victoria, or what happens over time when the plastic liners used in the pits begin to break down.

“The quarry itself is 15 per cent dug. Still 85 per cent remains to be blasted,” Cook said. “We’ll have containment cells next to and adjacent to an active blasting site. That is unprecedented. That has never occurred before.”

“Shawnigan Lake and its citizens are being used as a test laboratory for this facility.”

On January 6 South Island Resource Management, the company managing the disposal site since June 2015, release a statement, saying, "We are fully compliant with the Ministry of Environment Waste Discharge Permit and with the Ministry of Mines Permit.There is no quantifiable risk from the site to human health in the Shawnigan Lake watershed and we continue to hope that reasonable debate will prevail.”

In November a breach of surface runoff from the site prompted the Vancouver Island Health Authority to issue a no-used water advisory to Shawnigan lake residents. 

Cook said despite what he sees as “unacceptable risks,” years of community opposition has fallen on deaf ears.

“Our minister [Mary Polak] and our Premier have steadfastly refused to act,” he said. “All we are asking them to do is put a stay in place to prevent further contaminants being brought to this site until a complete judicial review has been heard.”

During the ongoing judicial review, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Sewell will hear evidence the permit holder lacks credibility and relied on faulty engineering advice. 

Cook said while that review was waiting to hit the courts in November, new contaminated industrial waste was being trucked in from Port Moody.

“When we win, the site will have to be remediated,” Cook said. “Those costs will be borne by every citizen in B.C. Why further increase those costs? Let the judicial review take place. Let all the facts be heard by a judge.”

From an ad hoc helicopter landing pad one the shore of Shawnigan Lake, Port Moody city council member, Zoe Royer said she is “very concerned” about industry from her riding shipping contaminated waste to this community.

“I’m not here representing the city of Port Moody,” Royer said. “I’m here because I’m deeply concerned about the situation in Shawnigan Lake, about the contamination that is happening in this community.”

“My heart goes out to the people in this community. This was a pristine watershed and many, many people depend on it for their drinking water and their livelihood.”

“We have to stand together and help to stop this,” Royer said before boarding the helicopter for an aerial view alongside two other Port Moody city councilors.

Georgia Collins. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

Shawnigan resident Georgia Collins, who lives on the lake beside the makeshift helicopter pad, said when the company first came to the community they said the landfill site would benefit everyone.

“They said it was something that would be very helpful to the community, that it would be cleaning up contaminated sites that are in the watershed already,” Collins said. “But it turns out that it’s a permit to dump 5 million tonnes of contaminated soil over 50 years and that soil can come from anywhere.”

Collins’ young son played around her legs as we spoke. “We do have elected representatives and we expect them to protect our water,” she said. “We expect them to protect our livelihoods. What we’ve seen is them constantly ignoring our community.”

She added that since 2012 the company and the provincial government tried to manage the community to limit public backlash.

“But we’re not going away.”

“It’s hard to see this going on, that this is possible in any community,” she said. “There is the beautiful silver lining that this has galvanized the people and I love the people here. They’re my community and I want to protect them.”

Collins said Environment Minister Mary Polak has the authority to place a hold on the permit at any time.

“We’re a community in unrest and we deserve to have this put on hold. We deserve to have trucks stopped while we wait for judges to make the right decision.“

Images by Jayce Hawkins for DeSmog Canada.

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