The Highlands District Community Association (HDCA) has filed an application to the BC Supreme Court for a judicial review of the Province’s recent approval of a new rock quarry near the southern Millstream Road entrance to the Highlands municipality.
The court petition names the Attorney General of BC, the Minister of Mines, Energy & Petroleum Resources and the Chief Inspector of Mines, along with the project proponent, OK Industries Ltd. (OKI). The mine approval, granted in March, permits the construction and operation of a rock extraction and crushing operation in this rural residential area.
The HDCA has remained strongly and vocally opposed to this quarry since it was first proposed in 2016 and mounted a #NotOK campaign. A community petition against OKI’s proposal was signed by more than 1,000 residents (nearly half the municipality’s population of 2,200), and 3,000 others signed a Change.org petition.
Chief concerns include impacts the operations will have on the subsurface aquifer on which Highlands residents rely for drinking water, noise and dust the project will generate over its 18-plus year lifespan, road safety hazards from increased heavy truck traffic to and from the site on an increasingly busy Millstream Road, potential negative impacts to the quality of life and house prices for surrounding residents, and robbing the precious natural space adjoining Thetis Lake Park of its biodiversity.
Scott Richardson, chair of the HDCA board of directors, said that many residents share the big concern that stripping the property of trees and extensive rock blasting may contaminate the local aquifer. Almost all residents in the Highlands get their drinking water from wells.
“In its decision to approve this application, in our view the Province has not adequately addressed the significant possibility that ongoing blasting will cause toxic contaminants from the adjacent Millstream Meadows, which is a historic liquid waste dump, to migrate towards and contaminate our drinking water,” said Richardson.
OK Industries purchased the 65-acre property from the Province in January 2015. In late 2016, District of Highlands Council denied OKI’s rezoning application to change the land from its “Greenbelt 2” to “Industrial” use. Despite this, on March 24, 2017, OKI applied directly to the Province for a Mines Act permit, which was granted on March 18, 2020, imposing an open-face rock quarry in an area the community has zoned Greenbelt.
When the proposed development was referred back to the District for comment, Highlands Council vehemently opposed it on June 23, 2017. On March 11, 2020, the CRD Board unanimously voted to support the Highlands in opposition to the proposal.
“Despite two levels of local government clearly opposing the development of the project over concern for protection of the District’s precious groundwater, the Province has authorized mining of a commodity that is abundant on almost all parts of the Island,” said Richardson. “Rock could be mined almost anywhere, but once groundwater is contaminated it can’t be replaced.”
Richardson said the HDCA was hampered all along by an unclear process and guidelines for public input into the project, in spite of several requests for clarification.
“Seemingly there was zero expectation that the public might be able to contribute valuable input, expert evidence or productively critique information presented by the proponent,” said Richardson.
“After having attempted to actively engage the Statutory Decision Maker, the Chief Inspector of Mines, the Mines Minister and our MLA over the past three years, unfortunately our last remaining recourse is to take this issue to the courts,” said Richardson. “In the end we were denied due process, and we believe the Province hasn’t adequately addressed important public interest considerations, including the substantial health and safety, environmental and social concerns associated with this proposal.”
Richardson added the last thing that’s needed in the era of COVID-19 is approval of a new business that will directly and negatively affect the air quality and health of local residents.
“And the last thing we need in the face of a climate emergency is a project that strips the land of trees and contributes to more heating of our planet,” said Richardson.
The HDCA’s counsel is Ian Knapp at MacKenzie Fujisawa LLP in Vancouver.
For more information contact:
Scott Richardson, Chair, Highlands District Community Association
Phone: 250-478-2526
Email: scott.richardson@shaw.ca