SRA soil dumping case should help determine future decisions
Dear Premier John Horgan:
The fact Justice Robert Sewell is awarding some legal cost recovery to the bravely persistant Shawnigan Residents Association is a great eco-victory indeed.
In the wake of this tragically unnecessary conflict — where residents raised $700,000 to fight a provincial toxic-soil dumping permit — I hope your government now uses the SRA’s case to stop such cases elsewhere in Cowichan, and across B.C.
To your credit Premier, you visited the protest site off Stebbings Road various times to hear residents’ pit-runoff pollution fears. The lesson here is for our government to disallow such permits for downstream dumping once residents register opposition — no matter if all scientists OK the permit proposal.
Also, Judge Sewell’s wise finding that pit owners South Island Aggregates/Cobble Hill Holdings’ failed to properly disclose documents, showing a partnership-like arrangement with Active Earth Engineering, shows the gross folly of firms’ cozy deals with engineering firms whose professional bodies are sadly allowed to police themselves.
Peter W. Rusland
Duncan