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Approval for Shawnigan Lake Dump Tainted by ‘False and Misleading’ Information
Judge orders Environmental Appeal Board to hold new hearing on controversial waste site.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/01/24/..._content=012417-1&utm_campaign=editorial-0117
A B.C. Supreme Court justice has ordered the Environmental Appeal Board to revisit its controversial 2013 approval of a contaminated waste dump in a quarry near Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island.
Justice Robert Sewell ruled that the board failed to act fairly when it approved the project.
He found the board relied on a technical assessment report (TAR) on the project’s environmental impacts prepared by Active Earth Engineering Ltd.
But the board didn’t know that Active Earth was negotiating to be a partner in the contaminated waste site, Sewell found.
The assessment report “was prepared by engineers who were not independent and who stood to profit from the continued operation of the facility,” Sewell said. “That is a circumstance that goes to the heart of the integrity of the approval process under the Environmental Management Act.”
Active Earth did the work as its contribution to a joint venture that would operate the waste site and “earn income from it.”
“Withholding of this information from the board brought the integrity of the approval process and appeal into question,” concluded the judge. “The TAR was prepared by persons who were biased in favour of approving the project.”
“I am satisfied that the board was misled about the true nature of the relationship between Active Earth and CHH [quarry owner Cobble Hill Holdings] and the fact that Active Earth’s principals were partners in the proposed facility,” Sewell found.
Sewell found Marty Block of Cobble Hill Holdings “deliberately concealed” information about the relationship with Active Earth from the board in his testimony.
The company’s “lack of candour in these proceedings reinforces my view that the interests of justice require that the decision be set aside and the matter remitted to the board for reconsideration in light of the fresh evidence.”
The board also relied on testimony from government witnesses without determining if they were qualified to provide expert evidence, Sewell found.
Sonia Furstenau, Cowichan Valley regional director, hailed the decision as an important environmental ruling for the province. “It says there are rules and they have to be followed,” she said.
She said citizens learned almost 18 months ago that Active Earth were participants in the dump project, not independent engineers. The information was shared with the environment ministry, but it took no action, Furstenau said.
“By not acting on that information the Ministry of Environment sent out a message that they were comfortable being misled in a permitting process, and that’s a dangerous message,” she said.
David Karn, a ministry spokesperson, said in an email that it was “concerned around Justice Sewell’s findings with respect to the way evidence was presented to the Environmental Appeal Board. The ministry will take time to review the decision to determine how this impacts the province’s role in permitting the facility.”
No contaminated soil can now be received by the facility until the Environmental Assessment Board reviews its decision.
The government granted South Island Aggregates and Cobble Hill Holdings the right to fill part of an active quarry with contaminated soil and ash containing hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans against the wishes of local government.
