Ger Lyons - Focus Magazine

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talk of the town What’s the purpose of federal environmental regulations as they pertain to construction projects like the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline? Are they intended to protect the environment from negative impacts caused by construction? Or are they intended to protect construction projects from the negative impacts caused by public concern and scrutiny? These questions floated to the top of my mind recently after I posed a series of question to Transport Canada about the Telus duct relocation project in Victoria Harbour. It appeared that a key stipulation of a Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) environmental assessment had been ignored or misunderstood by the City of Victoria, and the regulatory body that was supposed to be enforcing the law was instead defending the City. Let me give you some context to set this up. My conversation with Transport Canada will follow. Work recently done by Ruskin Construction under a contract with the City of Victoria involved dredging a large trench across an area of Victoria Harbour that has been registered with the federal Contaminated Sites Inventory. The trench was dug in order to relocate communication cables belonging to Telus. The relocation project had been subject to a CEAA Environmental Assessment Screening Report carried out by Transport Canada. Studies have shown the area that was trenched is badly contaminated, with at least 19 environmental toxins present, each at concentrations that would qualify the site as a “Contaminated Site” under the BC Contaminated Sites Regulation Guidelines (see list to right). The consequences of stirring up those contaminants was laid out in a report prepared by Stantec Consulting for the City of Victoria. Stantec noted, “Both sediments and contaminants have the potential to affect marine biota. Increased turbidity may interfere with fish respiration, feeding activity and result in direct smothering of marine organisms. Resuspended contaminants may be ingested and result in bioaccumulation within the food chain, decreased invertebrate diversity, abundance and growth and physiological and behavioural alterations.” Rolling the dice in the harbour DAVID BROADLAND The City of Victoria was given permission last September by Transport Canada to go ahead with dredging the trench through the contaminated site. Transport Canada’s environmental assessment of the project accepted recommendations made on behalf of the City by Stantec that the work could be done without significant harm to the environment if certain precautions were taken. But in addition to the mitigation strategy put forward by Stantec, Transport Canada stipulated “that the proponent installs a sediment curtain around the area to be trenched to ensure suspended sediments are contained within the immediate project area.” (Emphasis added.) On reading Transport Canada’s assessment, any reasonable person would, I think, come David Broadland 8 Gordon O’Connor 12 Rob Wipond 14 The long-term environmental consequences of a mistake made by City Hall are uncertain. Concentrations of contaminants in surface sediments under the Johnson Street Bridge in relation to B.C. Contaminated Sites Regulation Guidelines 2-Methylnapthalene 2-5 times Acenaphthylene 2-5 times Antimony 2-5 times Arsenic 1-2 times Benz(a)anthracene 5-10 times Benz(o)pyrene 10 times Benz(o)fluoranthene 10 times Benzo(ghi)perylene 10 times Benzo(k)fluoranthene 10 times Cadmium 1-2 times Chrysene 10 times Dibenz(ah)anthracene 10 times Indeno(1,2,3-c,d)pyrene 10 times Silver 1-2 times Copper 1-2 times Lead 1-2 times Mercury detected Napthalene 1-2 times Phenanthrene 2-5 times Total PCB concentration 1-2 times Source: Morrow Environmental Consultants Inc.; Douglas A. Bright, Ross Wilson; Transport Canada, 2007. to the conclusion that a legitimate process to protect the environment was at work. After all, Transport Canada was demanding that a significant action, above and beyond what the City was offering, would have to be included. As it turned out though, Ruskin Construction dredged the trench through the contaminated site without deploying the required sediment curtains. Headquartered in Prince George, the company had the lowest of five bids the City received from companies pre-qualified to bid on the Telus relocation project. When asked why sediment curtains were not used, a spokesperson for the City of Victoria, Katie Josephson, said an “environmental monitor” had been on the site and any decision not to use a sediment curtain would have been made “under their guidance.” Josephson told Focus the environmental monitor’s work was done “in consultation with Transport Canada and according to their regulations.” Josephson first identified the “environmental monitor” as an employee of MMM Group, the City’s prime consultant on the relocation project, but two weeks later clarified that Ruskin, the company that did the dredging, had done the environmental monitoring. Adding two of Josephson’s pieces of information together, we arrive at the startling conclusion that the company doing the dredging also made the decision not to use sediment curtains. (Ruskin Construction did not respond to a request for information) Josephson also said, “A silt fence or sediment curtain is required for work on land as the issue is to prevent runoff with contaminants from entering the harbour... No sediment curtain is required in-water—only mitigation measures.” (Emphasis added.) But a spokesperson for Transport Canada, Sau Sau Liu, contradicted the City’s claims about what they were expected to do and what consultation had taken place. “Transport Canada,” Liu said, “did not advise the City of Victoria, or any other entity, to not use the sediment curtains.” Transport Canada was also at odds with the City’s interpretation of what “sediment curtains” and “mitigation” meant. 8 March 2012 • FOCUS
Work on the Telus duct relocation was done without proper environmental mitigation in place. As Liu explained, “A sediment curtain is a fine-mesh fabric suspended from floats and weighted at the bottom to control silt and sediment from entering or spreading in the water, and allows suspended particles to settle in a confined area of water.” Liu also said, “The mitigation required was the use of a sediment curtain around the area to minimize the spread of suspended sediments.” Liu clarified that “the immediate project area” stipulated in the environmental assessment “refers to the area adjacent to where the work was done.” In other words, the dredging across the contaminated site should have involved sediment curtains strung from one side of the channel to the other, on either side of the dredged trench. A City employee had, by mistake or neglect, misinterpreted the intended mitigation. Now this sounds like a clear-cut case of the City failing to abide by the terms of a CEAA environmental assessment. Fulfilling the stipulations of that assessment was part and parcel of a federal contribution agreement to provide up to $21 million to fund the new Johnson Street Bridge project. The funding agreement said failure to abide by the terms of the environmental assessment could lead to “default.” But the studies and the terms of the funding agreement, so far as they purport to protect the environment, appear to be a farce. I suggested to Transport Canada’s Liu that since her agency had stipulated use of a sediment curtain to prevent environmental damage, it followed that, since curtains were not used, environmental damage would occur. Liu responded, “No. Transport Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans required the proponent to have an environmental management plan and an approved environmental monitor on site responsible to the environmental management plan. The environmental management plan and use of an environmental monitor mitigate environmental damage.” www.focusonline.ca • March 2012 Just how deployment in the field of the “environmental management plan,” or even the “environmental monitor” could physically replace the missing sediment curtains in preventing the spread of contaminant-laden sediments was unclear. Would Transport Canada follow up to determine whether any environmental damage was done? Liu said, “Transport Canada has received environmental monitoring reports for all works conducted to date on this project. We are satisfied with the work to date.” Although the City claimed Ruskin was the environmental monitor, Liu said the “environmental monitoring reports” were provided by the City of Victoria. And when we asked Liu what specific actions had been taken by Transport Canada that allowed them to conclude “there has been no environmental impact,” she said, “Transport Canada reviewed the environmental monitoring reports provided by the City of Victoria...” But can simply reading a report prove anything? It gets worse. Scrutiny of Transport Canada’s CEAA Environmental Assessment Screening Report for the Telus Duct Project shows that much of the report is simply a word-for-word copying of paragraphs from a report written for the City by Stantec Consulting. Transport Canada provides attribution for some of this copying, but some copied passages are given no attribution. It boils down to this: the Environmental Assessment is largely written by the proponent. Is that how it works for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, too? It’s not surprising that the City of Victoria bungled the very first shovels-in-the-ground operation in building the new Johnson Street Bridge. It’s harder to understand why Transport Canada would, at considerable taxpayer expense, first insist on an action they said would mitigate environmental damage, then look the other way once they learned their instruction had been ignored. David Broadland is the publisher of Focus Magazine. 9
Page 1 and 2: OCUS Victoria’s monthly magazine
Page 3 and 4: contents March 2012 VOL. 24 NO. 5 1
Page 5 and 6: WHEN CITIZENS ARE CUT OUT of decisi
Page 7: about how to shut down opposition.
Page 11 and 12: VICTORIA HAS MORE POLICE per capita
Page 13 and 14: Focus presents: Coast Mountain Expe
Page 15 and 16: THE JULY 2009 REVIEW shows Steven M
Page 17 and 18: www.focusonline.ca • March 2012 A
Page 19 and 20: www.focusonline.ca • March 2012
Page 21 and 22: to understand, possibly because she
Page 23 and 24: the arts in march Continuing to Mar
Page 25 and 26: Discover the Legacy Art Gallery www
Page 27 and 28: March 6 MONIQUE MOJICA University o
Page 29 and 30: “Smoker”, ink on paper Luke Ram
Page 31 and 32: Traditional “Shoji” room divide
Page 33 and 34: Focus presents: All Organized Stora
Page 35 and 36: “ I’M LIKE A PIONEER WHO HAS GO
Page 37 and 38: “ THERE IS A LOT OF TALK about co
Page 39 and 40: “ MOST PEOPLE WOULD REFER TO THEI
Page 41 and 42: “ IN LAW, EVERY CLIENT WHO COMES
Page 43 and 44: nity monitor, called upon to be tou
Page 45 and 46: CLIFF? PARACHUTE? Future-proofing o
Page 47 and 48: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Import & Design

Ger Lyons - Focus Magazine

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