Appeal lost
Friends of Davie Bay (FODB) have lost an appeal of a court decision about a proposed limestone quarry on Texada Island.
On May 24, 2011, FODB, supported by West Coast Environmental Law, filed an appeal with the BC Court of Appeal of Justice Peter Voith’s May 4, 2011 decision.
Voith declined to interfere with the decision of the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) to allow the proposed Texada South Quarry to go ahead without an environmental assessment.
Mining giant Lehigh Hanson Materials Ltd. plans to open a 74.6-hectare limestone quarry with mining reserves greater than 100 million metric tonnes. A loading ramp is to be built over Davie Bay with a loading capacity of 2,500 tonnes per hour. However, Lehigh states in its mining application that it estimates production of just 240,000 tonnes per year, just shy of the 250,000-tonne production that would trigger an automatic environmental assessment. At that ate, the quarry could run for more than 400 years. FODB believes the acreage, mining reserves and planned infrastructure indicate a much larger quarry.
The appeal court found the chambers judge committed no error. “The EAO came to a reasonable conclusion in interpreting ‘production capacity’ to mean a proponent’s intended operational production capacity, rather than the theoretical maximum production capacity a project’s proposed infrastructure, equipment, and operation could allow,” the decision states.
Although FODB lost the appeal, an email circulated to supporters points out there have been “some wins. We have been successful in protecting a reasonable area around the Stromberg Falls and caves, but remain concerned about the conservation of the large area of limestone karst.”
Power outage
Some effluent was discharged into the environment after Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River division lost power early Tuesday morning, September 4. The power outage, which happened around 4:20 am, was caused by a connector that failed, said Brian Johnston, mill manager. “The first priority in a power failure is to ensure that employees are safe and secure,” he said. “We have a number of procedures and protocols that we go through.”
Once it’s been verified that everyone is safe, Johnston said, employees start to check if effluent pumps are running. “Immediately people realized that with things shutting down the way they did, the effluent pumps weren’t running,” he said.
Employees then started closing off valves and shutting off water, Johnston said. Effluent did run down from some of the collection stations into some of the outfalls, he added. “We’re just in the process now of trying to work up exactly what that volume was,” he said. “We don’t have a final number on that yet.”
The release was reported to the Provincial Emergency Program and the provincial ministry of environment. Power was restored to the mill around 9:30 am the same day, Johnston said. “The first thing we went after was getting all of the effluent lift stations running, so that any cooling or fresh water that might still be running and running into the chuck is all being collected and sent back into the effluent treatment system,” he said.
Paper machines started up later in the evening, Johnston said, but with some challenges as a result of the sudden loss of power.
Police search
RCMP dive team members have recovered the body of a man who jumped off a cliff into the water at Teakerne Arm. Police received a distress call from a woman who was on a boat at a Teakerne Arm waterfall around 8:30 pm on Tuesday, September 4. A 34-year-old man from Quadra Island who had been with her had injured himself after he jumped off the cliff. Rescue attempts failed, the man
sank below the water and did not resurface, according to a release from the RCMP.
The Canadian Coast Guard conducted an extensive search until the early morning hours of September 5. Powell River RCMP conducted another search during the daylight hours, but also failed to locate the man. The RCMP dive team from Vancouver Island, along with the West Coast Marine Section from Campbell River, returned to the scene on Thursday, September 6 to conduct another search. They recovered the man’s body around 11:15 am. The matter has been turned over to the BC Coroners Service. The man’s name is being withheld for the privacy of the family, said the RCMP.
Teakerne Arm is approximately 21 nautical miles north of Powell River in Desolation Sound.
