By Matthew Bains

 

DAWSON CREEK – The controversial industrial landfill project proposed next to Swan Lake will not be going ahead after the board of the Peace River Regional District voted to refuse an application for the required zoning and official community plan amendments on July 22. 

 

However, that decision was not without a rigorous debate, and the vote was split six to four in favour of refusing the application, with the directors of Tumbler Ridge and Taylor being ineligible to vote for technical reasons. 

 

Chetwynd director Evan Saugstad opposed the motion to refuse the application, stating he wasn’t supporting the project, but felt the provincial environmental assessment process should be completed before the board made its decision. He said there were questions around if those types of landfills are needed in the region, where they should be located, how they would be managed and how financial security would be guaranteed for the life of the project, that needed to be answered.  

 

Saugstad said he felt those questions would not be answered unless the assessment process was complete and without those answers he could not make an informed decision.   

 

“I don’t have the information to base [a decision] on other than a political decision to say that the people don’t want it there,” he said. “Just because somebody doesn’t like it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good or bad.”

 

He said if the environmental assessment process didn’t answer those questions to the board’s satisfaction, they could still retain the right to refuse the application.  

Fort St. John director Bruce Lantz agreed. 

 

“We have an environmental review process for a reason, and I don’t think we want to circumvent that or jump ahead of that, because that negates the whole purpose of having it,” he said.

Dawson Creek director Mike Bernier and Hudson’s Hope alternate director Darryl Johnson also opposed the motion.  

 

However, Electoral Area D director Wayne Hiebert, who represents the Tupper area residents opposed to the landfill, said he felt many of those questions were already answered, but he just did not agree with the location.  

 

 “I feel we do need a landfill for the oil and gas industry, but this, from everything I’ve looked at, is just the wrong location for it,” he said.

 

Electoral Area C director Arthur Hadland said it was clear residents did not want the landfill at that location, adding the conflict was indicative of a larger problem.   

 

 “I think we just see this continuous effort to industrialize the rural communities, and I’m opposed to that happening, and I think we need to send a clear signal that this willy-nilly application process in not acceptable,” he said.

 

He added he was not confident in the objectiveness of the EA process, citing when the OSB plant was proposed in Fort St. John, he attended some of the meetings and was not impressed.  

 

“I couldn’t tell the difference between the proponent and the environmental assessment people,” he said, a comment that was received with enthusiastic applause from the Tupper area residents who were at the board meeting.  

 

Resident Colleen Borodula said she was relieved by the board’s decision, but disappointed by some of the directors’ faith in the environmental process.

 

“We don’t trust the environmental assessment office, it’s just a paperwork shuffle,” she said.

 

Corey Higham, representing the proponent, Secure Energy Services, attended the meeting, and said the board’s decision was disappointing.  

 

“We feel we had a good site, and we were working through the environmental assessment process to answer the technical questions and concerns the public and the board had, so we’re a little disappointed they didn’t let that process play out the way we think it should have,” he said. 

 

He said his company has not yet made a decision on whether to pursue an alternate site in the region.