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Are the Province’s Agricultural Land Protectors Overwhelmed?

A Vancouver Island battle reveals a larger snarl: 400 ALR complaints, just four investigators across BC.

Andrew MacLeod 19 Dec 2018TheTyee.ca

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria and the author of All Together Healthy (Douglas & McIntyre, 2018). Find him on Twitter or reach him at

According to some of his neighbours, Gord Truswell has a long history of breaking land use rules on his Vancouver Island farm and damaging the environment. They say he tends to seek the required permissions only after there have been complaints.

From Truswell’s point of view, he’s taking good care of his farm. He has not been charged with any violations and says he’s being needlessly harassed by neighbours who are making it even more difficult to survive as a dairy farmer.

Similar conflicts are going on across the province, says local MLA Sonia Furstenau, who recently raised the issue in the B.C. legislature.

And the Green MLA blames the provincial government’s long failure to monitor what’s happening on the land and enforce its regulations, leaving neighbours feeling that they have to do the job themselves.

Pam Miller, the president of the recently formed Kingburne Valley Community Association, makes a similar point. Truswell’s neighbours feel there’s a lack of oversight and they need to be vigilant.

“Some people call him a rogue operator and don’t have any confidence that he knows what he’s doing,” Miller said. “The sense we get from him is he tries to work around regulations.”

The current battle is over excavation on the farm. Truswell says he’s digging a pit to collect water for irrigation. Neighbours say he’s running a quarry without the required permits.

In a Nov. 14 letter to senior inspector of mines Jim Dunkley on behalf of the association, Miller wrote that “Many neighbours have come to the conclusion that Mr. Truswell habitually ignores government regulations, shows no courtesy to his neighbours, and seems to operate his non-farming businesses in a cavalier manner.”

Blasting without warning, neighbours say

Truswell’s farm, which is within the Agricultural Land Reserve, is a few minutes drive west of Cobble Hill, not far from the Island Highway.

Some people arrive in the area without knowing much about what it means to live near a modern farm, Truswell said. “They’ve got the picture of the old farmer leaning on his fork with the straw in his mouth,” he said. “Farming’s changing somewhat these days. We’re a lot more machinery involved. Things are getting a little bigger. You’ve got to be a little bigger to survive.”

Neighbours’ concerns about what’s happening on the farm go back to at least 2004.

They include the digging of two pits that neighbours believe are in fact quarries where Truswell, who has an excavation business, is mining aggregate — sand, gravel and stone — without the necessary permits. There’s been blasting without warning, they say, much of it at a site close to Kingburne Drive, where people not only drive, but walk, ride horses and cycle.

“He doesn’t follow the rules,” Miller said. “You’re supposed to let people know when you’re going to blast. He hadn’t been doing that.”

Truswell disagreed that there’s blasting on the farm without warnings. The blaster has the discretion to decide what precautions are needed, he said. If blasters believe there is no risk outside the immediate area, they are only required to sound an alarm to ensure employees on the worksite are safe.

Neighbours also complain there’s a large, uncovered compost pile that they believe is mainly material Truswell has brought to the site from jobs he’s done elsewhere. They worry that the pattern of runoff on the property has changed and that water may be getting pumped into a creek that flows into the Koksilah River.

In the summer neighbours held a meeting to gauge how much concern there was and 70 people showed up.

“We don’t trust him,” Miller said. “We don’t have confidence in what he’s doing. And if we knew that the ministries that should be involved were involved, were monitoring it, and they were checking off on it or not, then we’d have a little more reassurance that he’s working within standards, but we don’t have that.”

Neighbours have raised their concerns with the Agricultural Land Commission, which oversees what happens in the land reserve, the mining ministry and WorkSafeBC, but gotten little satisfaction, she said.

Four ALC officers, 400 complaints

Sometimes the responses add to the impression the government is unwilling or unable to do its part.

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Agriculture Minister Lana Popham: more enforcement is needed. Photo from BC NDP.

In October, a letter signed by Agriculture Minister Lana Popham acknowledged the complaint to the ALC and outlined what had been done on the file over the past 10 months.

But then there was this warning.

“Please note that the ALC Compliance and Enforcement program currently has a backlog of over 400 complaints managed by four officers that respond to complaints across the entire province.” Complaints are logged in a database, put in a queue, then responded to in the order they were received, Popham wrote.

Andy Stewart, a neighbour who worked for the government in environment ministries for 35 years, said something seems to be wrong with the ALC. Staffing has been cut and the commission has had rapid turnover of employees.

“I’m disappointed in the ALC’s response to violations,” he said, noting it’s hard to reach staff on the phone and they seem to be overwhelmed with the number of infractions. “If there’s no penalty to violating the rules, the rules don’t matter much.”

Asked in an interview about the letter, Popham said the ALC has been clear it needs more resources. “That’s a discussion that I’ve been having with the Agricultural Land Commission,” she said. “They’ve put forward that they do need more support, so we’re considering that for the next budget... I haven’t got my budget yet, but I know it’s a very serious thing.”

The ALR — intended to protect farmland, with restrictions on non-agricultural uses — includes 4.6 million hectares, almost five per cent of the province. Many people live on or next to land that’s in the reserve.

During the fall sitting of the legislature the government passed legislation it said would strengthen the land reserve. It restricted the size of homes that can be built in the ALR, reversed a decision by the former government to split the reserve into two zones with different levels of protection and increased penalties for breaking the law.

Popham acknowledged that it would take more to strengthen the ALR. “With this new legislation... we will need more enforcement, so yes, I’m absolutely concerned about the same thing and I would like to see that increased.”

As for the dispute on Kingburne Drive, Popham said she knew about it but was limited in what she could say. “It’s been an ongoing problem for quite some time,” she said. “Because the Agricultural Land Commission is involved in it, I’m not able to weigh in until they’ve finished doing their work.”

Neighbours lack facts, says farmer

If the situation puts the neighbours in the awkward position of feeling like they have to take on a watchdog role that should be filled by government, it’s also deeply unpleasant for farmer Truswell as well.

Truswell has owned the farm since 1981. He’s retirement age now, but has three children in their 20s who are working on the farm, two of them full time.

“We’re actually in the business of farming and we like it. The people aren’t supporting the farmers though, and we’ve seen instances where they do disappear,” he said, predicting that the area may all be residential at some point not far into the future.

“What we’re battling is rural against residential,” Truswell said. “We’ve got more neighbours moving in.... they haven’t got a clue. They go away to work every day and they expect to have pleasant scenery.”

The main farm and adjacent areas include some 162 hectares where they keep 250 cattle, not quite half of which are milking age. “It’s a pretty nice looking farm there, if I don’t say so myself. We keep it pretty well greened up.”

Satellite photos available through Google maps show a patchwork of fields covering nearly the whole farm — a cleared area on a part of the Island that’s heavily forested — but also the chalky-coloured scar near Kingburne where he’s mined aggregate. Many neighbouring properties appear large and heavily treed.

When the neighbours say he’s operating outside the rules, they don’t have all the facts, Truswell said. “They’ve taken what they want and run with it. I’ve been working with the authorities 25 years on this, between environment, mines, water rights. You name it, I’ve got boxes of files.”

Permit application

Miller said she was surprised to see the number of backlogged complaints the ALC has lined up to look into.

“My initial reaction, and the reaction of other people, is it just confirmed what we thought, that they are understaffed,” she said. “We don’t have an inspector on the Island, and the ALC inspector that’s in charge of our area has other areas that he’s in charge of. So how can they, with that kind of staff, monitor what’s happening on ALR land?”

Nor does the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources seem to be able to fill its role, Miller said. “The ministry of mining is challenged by the number of mines that are in B.C. and trying to see if they are in compliance with the requirements in their permits. That’s big mines, let alone little mines like what’s occurring here.”

During one of the last question periods before the holiday recess, Green Party MLA Furstenau raised the Kingburne concerns in the legislature.

The ministries of mines and agriculture had agreed in 2008 that the hole growing on the farm was an irrigation pond, even though rock was being removed by dump trucks rolling through the neighbourhood, she said.

“Here we are, 10 years later, and the hole on this property very much appears to be a quarry, a quarry that has operated without a permit for over a decade. What is the ministry of energy and mines’ solution to this? Give the landowner an opportunity to apply for a permit 10 years after he has apparently begun quarrying,” Furstenau said.

Did Michelle Mungall, the minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, think it was appropriate “to reward rule-breaking” by issuing the permits?

Mungall responded that the previous government had concluded in 2009 that the activities really were for agricultural purposes, but when government took another look in 2016 it decided mining permits were required.

The application arrived in June 2017, then a revised version in March 2018, she said. “Since then, we have been working to ensure that the public is involved and that they have their opportunity to comment.”

The issue has been referred to other agencies and First Nations for consultation, Mungall said. “We will make sure, as we must do, that the appropriate permits are in place and regulations are, indeed, followed.”

Break rules, ask forgiveness later?

Furstenau said in the legislature that she was worried about the signal the government was sending. “I’m concerned that the message that this sends is that rules don’t actually matter. If you break them, we will fix them for you.”

Residents had identified serious shortfalls with the permit application, Furstenau said, including a claim that the project had been started with approval when it had not been, claiming it wasn’t inside the community’s watershed when it in fact was, and submitting inaccurate maps that were drawn by hand.

Residents “have serious and ongoing concerns about the safety and reliability of their drinking water, which is drawn from an aquifer they worry is being impacted by these quarrying activities,” she said, calling for a public meeting as part of the permit application process.

Mungall told Furstenau the permit process is overseen by the chief inspector of mines. “That individual has assured myself that he’s committed to working with all partners and taking public feedback into account as he works through the process on this permit.”

Mungall said in an interview that she believes her ministry has the resources it needs to do its job, but that there’s room for improvement. “That’s something we’ve been working on through the budget process as well as through our organizational changes.”

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BC Mines Minister Michelle Mungall says her ministry has the needed resources but that there’s room to improve. Photo: Wikipedia.

The government is working to implement recommendations auditor general Carol Bellringer made in 2016 to create a compliance and enforcement unit that’s independent from the ministry, Mungall said. “The previous government did start, I’ll credit them with that, but there’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done around that.”

A spokesperson for the mining ministry also provided a background statement saying it understood the concerns and that it has responded appropriately as activities on the farm changed.

“This location had previously been undertaking some excavation on the property related to agricultural activities which would not constitute mining activities, however those activities have changed over time and this ministry began to take the appropriate steps to regulate it,” it said.

The ministry concluded in 2016 that the operation is a mine and needs a permit. It’s now reviewing the application. “The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will remain attentive to this operation and ensure the appropriate permits are in place and regulations are followed. That could still entail oversight by other ministries,” it said.

Pond needed to store water

Truswell said he was surprised that Furstenau raised questions in the legislature about his farm. “She’s pitted the neighbours against us. It’s not pleasant, but I’ve got to deal with it every day.” He’d spoken with her office, but not with her, he said. “She’s not at all interested, it appears, in our side of it.”

Truswell acknowledged that the irrigation pond project has been going on a long time, but says it’s a business where you have to plan a long way ahead and the project is almost finished. Climate change is real and there have been five years of drought, he said, adding that winters are wet, but the summers are dry, making irrigation ponds necessary.

If you want to draw water from streams and aquifers, the environment ministry gets involved, he said. “One of their main points is you’ve got to store winter water. So none of those goddamn guys in the government can seem to talk to each other, you know.... They want us to store water, and here you’ve got Sonia there pounding us.”

And what about his reputation for doing things and asking permission later?

“That’s what [Furstenau] brought up. Sometimes you do that. Sometimes, this particular one here, there’s a box full of permits,” he said, referring to the current aggregate mine and future irrigation pond.

Removing aggregate is part of what makes the farm viable, said Truswell, who also runs an excavation contracting business. “I’m actually in the dirt-moving business myself. It’s one way I’ve managed to build my farm. There’s not a lot of extra money in the farm. It’s hard to start from scratch and build it up.”

In another spot he’s digging what neighbours believe is another quarry and which may be the site for a silo. He says he’s levelling the land. “I’m fully within my rights to do that. We’re not bothering anybody.... Really it’s little to do with them. The neighbours are quite a distance away.”

‘Venomous’ neighbours

Truswell told a story about an electrician who was putting a pump house in for him near Kingburne Drive. A neighbour wanted to know what the electrician was doing. “You know, like she’s venomous,” he said, adding the electrician responded it was none of her business.

“They really think they’re going to dig something up here,” he said. “I’m reasonably calm about it. I’m going to carry on. I’ll have my pond one way or the other. I’m within my rights to dig it and pile the stuff up on the field, but I mean what sort of sense is there in that? If I can cover the cost of digging my reservoir by moving [the rock] down the road, seems like the way to do it to me.

“I don’t know where they got it in there the farmer’s not supposed to turn any money,” he added. “Are we supposed to grovel forever or what? They get to me.”

The neighbours have pushed the mine inspector to crack down in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise, Truswell said. “With all the pressure, they’ve got to do more,” he said. “I’ve seen [the neighbours’] emails. They’re basically trying to slow my permit down, eh, is what they say right in their emails. I mean they’re just trying to harass me.”

The conflict is largely about the changing nature of the area, he said. “We’re trying to farm with more residential coming around us,” he said. “If they don’t like it as a pleasant, greened up farm, it will be another subdivision.”

Even where he’s blasting, that really is about improving the farm, he said. “Where I’m blowing up that rock, you can’t farm the rock, and you can’t farm without water, so far as I’m concerned it’s a good place to put a reservoir.”

But neighbour Andy Stewart said that the community supports farming but that Truswell is more of an industrialist. There would be no issue if he simply followed the rules for how agricultural land can be used, Stewart said.

Government action needed: MLA

As the MLA for the Cowichan Valley, Furstenau met with a group of Truswell’s neighbours several months ago and encouraged them to organize themselves. “You can’t hope for somebody else to take care of things if you have an issue as a community. This is the Furstenau mantra. Get organized.”

She made the recommendation based on her own experience at Shawnigan Lake, where as a regional director she led the campaign to stop the dumping of five million tonnes of contaminated soil in her community’s watershed. Though it was obvious to the community from the start that it was the wrong site, the government was unwilling to listen, she has said.

The Cobble Hill case feels similar to her.

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Green MLA Sonia Furstenau: ‘You can’t hope for somebody else to take care of things if you have an issue as a community. This is the Furstenau mantra.’ Photo: BC Greens.

“The overarching thing on this whole file is where have the government agencies been all along, as the community has over and over and over raised concerns about the activities at this site, which look a whole lot like quarrying and which has not appeared to be regulated,” Furstenau said.

The mines ministry and Agricultural Land Commission should be doing more, she said. “It comes back to that duty that government has to make sure the rules are being followed and to make sure that everybody is being protected. How do you do that with four officers and a backlog of 400 complaints?”

She sighed before continuing. “It touches on a question that is experienced by a lot of these rural and semi-rural communities around B.C., which is this interaction between industrial activity and residential communities.”

If you’re going to have that interface — which we do throughout B.C. — government has an essential role in monitoring the industrial activity to make sure it poses no risk to health, water, air and soil, said Furstenau. Citizens deserve to have their rights protected, she added.

“When you strip away the expertise in government and the capacity for government to really hold up its end of the bargain in all of this, which is functionally as regulator and as protector of the rights of citizens, you can pretty much anticipate that these are going to be the outcomes and people are going to ... lose trust in government to do the job it is supposed to do, and that’s no good.”

She gave the example of another quarry in Shawnigan that was found to be operating outside the footprint that had been approved.

“The solution from ministry of mines was, oh, okay, we’ll redraw the mines permit so now it’s not breaking any rules. The message to industry, the message to individuals, is we’ve got your back. We’ll fix it for you. Break the rules, we’ll fix it for you. And that’s a bad message.”

The new government elected in 2017 so far hasn’t done enough to change direction, she said. “I would say this file is an indication that things still need work.”  [Tyee]

Read more: BC Politics, Environment

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