Rural directors with the Strathcona Regional District based out of Campbell River have basically put aquaculturists on notice that they’re not prepared to give the green light to any new development to the aquaculture industry in their area.
In a clearly prechoreographed and brief discussion at a regular board meeting towards the end of March, the directors tossed out a rezoning application by the We Wai Kai (Cape Mudge) First Nation which would allow the FN’s pilot scallop farm southeast of Quadra Island’s Rebecca Spit to be extended and become a permanent marine operation.
With no reference to any environmental impact from the water-cleaning shellfish operation, they cited islander opposition because of conflict with current zoning under the Official Community Plan - adopted in 2008 after two years of tough-sledding with island residents - and potential visual impact on the waterscape.
That was less than a week after a legal representative of the Band council told an SRD public hearing on the application on the island that the FN was attending as courtesy to its neighbours and the regional district, and in their opinion the current OCP zoning bylaw had no force or effect, because, lawyer Rod Naknakim said the FN contends it had not been sufficiently consulted in drawing and adopting the bylaw and OCP.
At the later board meeting, that point of view was rejected by island director Jim Abram, who outlined a history of consultation with the FN throughout his tenure as director.
And after the rezoning proposal was rejected at a board meeting Band council representatives confirmed the We Wai Kei would be pressing ahead with the plan through Victoria.
One also told this writer that the FN would also seek repossession of Rebecca Spit - whether that included the provincial park or just the campsite was unclear - through Victoria before the end of the year.
But the rural directors didn’t stop there. They first withdrew a required fourth and final reading and adoption for a proposed bylaw which would have enabled Grieg Seafoods to go ahead with a salmon-farm proposal near Gunnar and Bennett Point near Hardwicke Island.
And then they agreed that until the federal government has a new regulatory regime and process in place for handling B.C.’s aquaculture industry they wouldn’t accept receipt of any new rezoning applications.
Abram then chased after the Cape Mudge FN council members at the meeting to ensure them that the directors had also agreed to try to work with the FN to try to find them an acceptable alternative location for the scallop farm - only to be told that they had already looked into that in siting the pilot program where it is, and that’s the best and most productive place in the general area.
At the meeting Abram led the directors in withdrawing the okay for the Grieg salmon-farm rezoning request. The arguments included: that the board had heard nothing from Victoria on the proposed zoning change in eight months, which the directors took as indicating reluctance; and the failure of Grieg to supply a required written letter of commitment to three concessionary conditions (partly to do with sea lice and closed containment), which the company had agreed to verbally in public at the last of three public hearings.
Although Grieg was initially incorrectly quoted as stating the letter had been filed, general manager Peter Gibson said that it was known the letter was being handled in a package with a required final authorization from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
He said the regional directors knew full well that there was no rush on the letter or the position to be taken by Victoria, because the company had stated it had no intention of putting any fish into the water in the new site until next March, nearly a year away.
And that, reminded Gibson, would be after the new regime had been decided and put into place, in some nine months’ time.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said, adding that apparently the directors felt they were expert enough on salmon-farming to decide to wriggle out of the bylaw, despite all of Grieg’s open commitments and concessions in order to win rural-director support for the bylaw.
“They just used the letter as an excuse,” he said. “They didn’t even have to make a decision on the bylaw at this time.”
What’s more, said Gibson, he was told by Victoria it had just indicated a “positive” or supportive position on the highly-conditional rezoning to the regional district.
He also said though that he had been told by an official in the SRD planning department immediately before the board meeting that the staff were putting forward a “negative” recommendation to directors at the meeting.


---Quentin Dodd