The Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) has dismissed an appeal brought against the environment ministry’s director of the Environmental Management Act, over site remediation plans for the George Hotel and Residences project in Gibsons.
The central issue in the appeal, filed by the Gibsons Alliance of Business and Community (GABC) and Gibsons resident Marcia Timbres, was a July 2017 “statement of support” for the plan to remediate the construction site, which is suspected of having contaminated soil from previous industrial activity.
Opponents of the project claimed the remediation plan did not properly address the issues at the site, which includes 377, 385, 397 and 407 Gower Point Rd. and 689 Winn Rd. and the Winn Road right-of-way as well as adjacent foreshore water-lot leases, and that the Town shouldn’t have issued permits based on the statement of support.
The EAB proceedings had already been adjourned once at the request of George Gibsons Development, which is considered a third party in the appeal, to “accommodate further investigations and testing” related to the presence of tributyltin, a substance once used in shipyards, and “the protection of the Gibsons aquifer.”
The hearing was to resume Oct. 21, but in mid-August George Gibsons Development applied to the EAB to have the appeal dismissed because the remediation plan covered in the 2017 letter “will no longer be implemented … [and] instead, the Applicant will be performing an independent remediation in accordance with a new, 2019 plan.”
According to the summary in the EAB documents, GABC and Timbres argued that “rather than dismissing the appeal based on the new 2019 documents … the Board should proceed with the hearing and evaluate this new evidence to determine whether it meets the ‘legally binding High Risk Reporting Requirements and whether the 2019 remedial plan is acceptable.’”
They also argued that going ahead with the appeal would have value in preventing “real world” impacts, such as the possibility the company would revert to the 2017 plan if the director’s decision is not formally rescinded.
After reviewing written arguments, an EAB panel chaired by Darrell LeHouillier issued a decision on Sept. 24 granting the dismissal.
“I find those impacts to be highly speculative and without merit in the context of the legislative scheme,” LeHouillier wrote. “For example, even if the applicant wanted to rely on the director’s decision … the director has statutory authority to reject this and impose new requirements.”
LeHouillier concludes, “I appreciate that the appellants and the residents of Gibsons are concerned about the contamination at the site and its impacts on human health and the environment… At any time during the independent remediation process, the director may inspect and monitor any aspect of the remediation to determine compliance.”
GABC president Suzanne Senger called the application to dismiss the appeal a “clever trick.”
“In 2018 the George developer promised to address the issues we raised in the appeal and to bring back a revised remedial plan that would not risk blowing out Gibsons aquifer and poisoning the marine environment,” she said in an email to Coast Reporter. “Instead of resolving the major problems with his 2017 remedial plan, [the developer] has come back with a worse concept in 2019. He’s refusing to release the new remedial plan for review and capitalizing on loopholes in legislation to get out from under provincial government oversight.”
Klaus Fuerniss of George Gibsons Development said he’s pleased with the decision and looks forward to moving ahead with the project. Fuerniss noted the many legal actions that opponents have filed in an attempt to stop the George development have failed and said, “I sincerely hope that this represents the last legal action.”
Fuerniss also said the company intends to ask the EAB to award costs. “Unfortunately to date, we have not been able to collect [GABC’s] past court ordered monetary obligations. A pattern has developed with these individuals and the GABC Board; their main interest is harassment, yet they are not prepared to pay for their subsequent obligations for the cost they have caused.”
