Salmon Arm: Environmental inventory suggested.

Can the public rely on the provincial and federal governments to provide proactive environmental protection?

Andy Witt, manager of habitat management in Victoria, said the environment ministry’s role, particularly with respect to private land, is to provide advice about environmental values.

“There’s no requirement to protect the value. We can tell people it’s there and why it’s important, but unless there’s a legislative hook, we can’t require them to protect it.”

He said the Riparian Area Regulation (RAR) is the way the province uses to direct municipalities to use their tools to comply with federal legislation, the Fisheries Act.

The RAR does not allow development within 30 metres of a watercourse.

He said some municipalities have obligatory habitat protection.

“Some municipalities have recognized wetlands, migration corridors, there’s lot of sensitive habitat out there.”

On Sept. 11, the City of Salmon Arm received an e-mail from the Ministry of Environment. It stated that the Riparian Areas Regulation assessment report for Salmon Arm Shopping Centres Ltd., meets the RAR reporting criteria, so local government can proceed with its approvals. In this case there was no permit pending. The report was prepared by a qualified environmental professional, or QEP.

Regarding the SmartCentres property, Witt remarked:

“I can tell you that the RAR is being implemented. That’s my focus on this particular one. Again, it’s up to the local government and the constituents in that local government if they would like to do further protection. If they would like to do that, the ministry would be able to provide some advice if they’re looking for such.”

The environment ministry no longer reviews every report done by a QEP. Witt said the reduction in overseeing reports is not due to staffing shortages.

“In the initial implementation of the regulation we were reviewing all reports... The reports coming in now are generally of good quality. Now we will do a random stratified monitoring,” Witt said, which will be done to check if the assessment has been done correctly and if the developer is following the direction in the report.

Michael Crowe is section head for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans habitat management program in the BC Interior.

On Sept. 14, he told the Observer that DFO’s opinion, with regard to the fill on the SmartCentres property, is that it is being placed in an area already destroyed because fill has been placed there historically. He said it is at least 50 metres back from the top of the bank of the Salmon River and a similar distance from Shuswap Lake.

Asked about being proactive, he remarked: “I would say we are monitoring this very carefully and going through the QEP report very carefully...”

At that time, he said it would be a few weeks before DFO’s review of the report was completed. However, contacted Sept. 21 after the Observer learned the QEP report had already been accepted by the environment ministry, he said DFO would not be needed to approve anything as the applicant was not seeking a variance. That’s because the fill was being placed outside the 30 metre RAR limit, not within it.

“Our role from this point will be to confirm that they do comply with the setback requirements under the regulation,” Crowe said.

Asked how he thinks the City of Salmon Arm is doing in terms of proactive environmental protection, he said: “There is a spectrum of municipalities, some that have higher standards and some that have lower. I would put Salmon Arm in the middle.”

Questioned further, he said those on the bottom end of the scale are those jurisdictions with no protection at all.

Asked if he would support the suggestion that Salmon Arm do sensitive ecosystems inventory mapping, he said yes.

“I think that would be an excellent idea. I strongly support and endorse that.”