Alberta-based aggregate company Lehigh Hanson Materials has announced it is abandoning its application to pursue exploratory surface drilling in the Lloyd Creek area just north of Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park.
The company, which extracts about four million tons of aggregate annually from its Sechelt and Chilliwack mines alone, had planned to drill in early September to determine the viability of a 1.2-square-kilometre gravel quarry in the Desolation Sound area.
According to corporate communications director Jeff Sieg, Lehigh Hanson recognized early on that mining in the area would not be economically feasible and the company routinely looks at sites across Canada and the United States. B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations granted Lehigh Hanson’s application to do exploratory work last fall.
“We’ve been looking at the property for some time, in terms of evaluating whether it would be feasible to mine it, and we’ve said from the very beginning that it’s just an exploratory process,” said Sieg. “Obviously, bringing in drilling equipment and contractors would be very expensive, so we just decided early on to not take it any further.”
The news came as a surprise to Save Desolation Sound Society, according to director Russell Hollingsworth, a Vancouver architect who helped form the society in January after hearing news about Lehigh Hanson’s application.
“I’m elated. You don’t often have this kind of turnaround and success in this kind of initiative, so I’m just very pleased and appreciative of Lehigh bowing out,” said Hollingsworth, who also cited the support of nearby Klahoose Nation.
“It wasn’t just us, and that’s probably what tipped the balance for Lehigh, is that there were an awful lot of people concerned and they were starting to coalesce together as a strong voice. With all of those forces acting together, Lehigh Hanson made a wise choice.”
As much as 70 million tons of gravel is estimated to be located in the Lloyd Creek area, which is about five kilometres northeast of the Desolation Sound provincial park boundary.
Hollingsworth said Save Desolation Sound Society will continue to keep an eye on any corporate activity in the area.
“The biggest disappointment I had in this whole thing was that our government invited them to proceed – the lack of sensitivity and understanding the government has,” he said.
