West Howe Sound director Ian Winn is not satisfied with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA)’s review process of Burnco’s gravel mine project.
“There are some inaccuracies I see within the CEAA report that have been pointed out to me by constituents and stakeholders and there is still a great deal of concern in the Howe Sound community about this,” he said at a Jan. 25 Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) committee meeting.
Following the committee’s analysis of the CEAA’s comprehensive study report for the project, the board agreed to send a request to the CEAA and BC Environmental Assessment Office that the SCRD be given an opportunity to comment on the draft follow-up program before it is finalized, should the project proceed, in addition to Burnco posting the approved follow-up program, an annual status report, and results of monitoring and activities on its project website.
Winn also asked for the following comments be sent to the federal and provincial assessment bodies, “SCRD has significant concerns that the review processes followed by CEAA have not adequately addressed the concerns of our citizens,” and that the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Canada “re-evaluate the applications and respective review processes” related to Burnco and “seek to bring about a fulsome oversight by the responsible agencies.”
“It is an environmental assessment report, as was the provincial one. The provincial one dabbled into the realms of social values, recreational values, real estate values. It did a woefully inadequate job of addressing those concerns, and the CEAA one doesn’t speak to those at all,” said Winn of the report.
The proposed Burnco gravel mine would be located at McNab Creek in West Howe Sound. The proposal has been in the works for six years, and the public comment period ended Jan. 22. Following the environmental assessment, Burnco will complete its application for an environmental certificate, and will also require rezoning from the SCRD, which has stated that “if the related zoning bylaw amendment is adopted for the gravel processing area, the EAO should be aware that the SCRD may establish conditions relating to hours of operation and construction that differ from those set out in the environmental assessment certificate.”
