The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) has decided to hold off sending a letter to Environment Minister George Heyman giving an update on the Comprehensive Regional Water Plan and asking him to speed up the decision process for the Chapman Lake expansion.
Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) chair Bruce Milne requested to pull out a recommendation made by the infrastructure services committee meeting held on Dec. 21 that a letter be sent to the Minister of Environment that gives an update on the “Comprehensive Regional Water Plan with regards to groundwater investigation and universal metering and further request the expedition of the public consultation process” for the expansion project.
Milne suggested the letter was premature.
“I would ask the board to step back a little bit, wait for this to be fully resolved and then write,” he told the board, adding that it “may be embarrassing if we move too quickly.”
Halfmoon Bay director Gary Nohr, chair of the infrastructure services committee, said in response that he prefers face-to-face discussions, and that the goal is to “make sure it gets on the table of the legislature.”
Although the board agreed to defer the question of writing the minister to a later date, Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell said, “I think what’s being hinted at around here is a significant policy shift, a very significant one. And I think this community deserves some significant debate.”
In December, Lebbell criticized Milne after the infrastructure committee was given a timeline for the Comprehensive Regional Water Plan (CRWP), which includes the Chapman Lake expansion project. Milne had suggested the Chapman Lake project was “dead” because “more votes are opposed” to going ahead with the project.
The province must give approval for the Chapman Lake project, which is located in Tetrahedron Provincial Park. The project involves constructing a deeper channel out of the lake that will allow more water to flow during emergency shortages to the 10,000 properties from West Howe Sound to Secret Cove that depend on the Chapman Water System for potable water.
