A proposed gravel-pit operation in Hilliers was met with near-unanimous opposition from residents at a public meeting on Wednesday last week.

 

Mayco Mix is applying to mine gravel from 180 acres of Crown land further up Chatsworth Road in Hilliers from its existing pit and processing plant.

 

About 80 people came to the Arrowsmith Hall in Coombs for the meeting, held as a Mines Act requirement of the permit-application process.

 

Just one spoke in favour of Mayco, saying the existing operation is quieter and tidier than some of her residential neighbours.

 

Mayco Manager Doug Lum told the meeting the company has "gone back to the drawing board" after its application three years ago was met with "lots of concerns."

 

It hired hydrogeologist Gilles Wendling to study the groundwater and fisheries biologist Dave Clough to study the wetlands on the proposed site. Wendling, of GW Solutions, said he still has to complete his work but is recommending drilling monitoring wells, monitoring fluctuations of the water table, developing a conceptual model, and establishing a safe distance from the pit floor to the water table (a diagram showed this may be a little as one metre, though he said it could be two or three metres).

 

"The idea is to protect the groundwater and the aquifer," he said.

 

Clough said he found seven wetlands on the site, most with little open water, and two streams, one mostly dry, feeding nearby Whiskey Creek.

 

Most of the wetlands are not good for fish, he said, but there are nonetheless coho, cutthroat, steelhead and brown trout.

 

The company is proposing to surround all the streams and wetlands with 30-metre riparian buffers, which Clough described as "the Cadillac standard."

 

Lum said the company wants to mine the site because of "the economics:" it's close to the current processing plant and it has "very, very good aggregate."

 

Only five hectares would be opened at any one time, he said, so residents could continue to hike or ride in the remainder.

 

Mining is to start in the south end of the site in a Hydro right of way and finish in about 40 years in the opposite corner of the south end.

 

Three single trucks would run between the site and the plant along narrow Chatsworth Road every 15 minutes between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. so as not to put school children at risk, he said. "We don't need to be out there from 7 till 7."

 

A site access road from Chatsworth and Walz Road would be watered to control dust, using water trucked in from the existing site, he said.

 

Residents weren't impressed, however.

 

Chatsworth Road resident Norm Skipsey said he appreciates the work the company has done but, if it does a little more work, it will find, "it's really not a good place for a gravel pit."

 

Charles Fenton, a retired lawyer living in Coombs, said the result of the mining will be "total destruction."

 

Faye Smith, of Qualicum Beach Streamkeepers, which has done a lot of restoration work in the area, said the site is "likely a high-risk area due to the high water table."

 

Streamkeepers, she said, "will be keeping an eye out."

 

Chatsworth Road resident Ingrid Tremblay was one of several people who expressed concerns about their wells.

 

"If our properties do not have water," she said, "our properties are worthless."

 

Julian Fell, the area's director on the Regional District of Nanaimo board, said the monitoring should be done for three years before government agencies consider the application.

 

Qualicum Beach Coun. Scott Tanner said the metre between the pit floor and the water table "strikes me as pretty slim... What happens if there's an oopsy?" He noted that both Crown land and the remnants of Coastal Douglas fir zones on the site are "rare" on Vancouver Island.

 

Annette Tanner, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, said the site is "much too precious" to be mined.

 

"We are talking about plant and animal species that are globally imperilled," she said.

 

Alberni-Pacific Rim MLA Scott Fraser said government has recognized that Coastal Douglas fir zones are "the most-endangered ecosystem in Canada - and it's only here."

 

He asked whether that will be considered in the permit process, as well as impacts on the broader watershed.

 

Ed Taje, coast-area manager for the Ministry of Energy and Mines, replied that the Coast Douglas fir "will be considered" and the proposed operation "will be looked at in terms of potential for compromising agriculture and drinking water." Lori Gillis said her Walz Road farm, abattoir and bakery will be "greatly impacted" by the mine.

 

"I stand by my community," she said. "I do not want the gravel pit."