Editor:
Re: “More George documents released,” Sept. 4.
In March 2019, 35 Gibsons citizens sent a letter to mayor and council. The letter expressed concerns that the George project poses a risk to the Town’s aquifer and asked that the developer post a $20-million bond in case the aquifer was accidentally damaged during construction. Please note that the letter did not oppose the construction of the George, it only asked that some insurance be available to save taxpayers from shouldering all the costs should an aquifer breach occur. The Town thanked the senders of the letter but eventually decided to not require the developer to post a bond.
So now with the Town’s very reluctant release of these heavily-redacted documents (available on the Town’s website) we learn that the Town’s own peer reviewer, (Waterline), stated that the developer’s consultants “did not fully recognize the potential risks of the proposed foundation plan to the Gibsons aquifer” and that the deep soil-mixing program “does not adequately consider the risk and consequences of breaching the Gibsons’ aquitard unit beneath the George site.”
Waterline also states that if a breach cannot be repaired, then long-term mitigation and maintenance would be required. (Paid for by whom?)
In fairness, a person should only pass judgment after reading all the other expert opinions on the matter, but the 25-page report submitted by Geosystems and “released” by the Town has been rendered useless in that it has been almost entirely blacked out by an overly diligent censor. What’s to hide, I ask?
If anyone on Gibsons council reads this, may I again call your attention to the facts of the engineering debacles of Save-On-Foods, Seawatch and now Site C. Please secure a bond. We taxpayers may need it.
Michael Storr, Gibsons
