Eco-heroes on Digby Neck

By Jonathan Riley

DIGBY COURIER

NovaNewsNow.com

The Stop the Quarry group has won an environmental award for doing what they thought was right.

The Nova Scotia Environmental Network named them the Eco-Heroes group of the year for 2007. “They won a huge victory,” said Tamara Lorincz, NSEN’s executive director. “This was a small group of individuals working long and hard to protect their environment. We really felt we needed to pat them on the back.”

The Stop the Quarry group is formally known as the Partnership for the Sustainable Development of Digby Neck and Islands Society. They spearheaded the fight against a proposed 150-hectare quarry for White’s Cove on Digby Neck.

A joint provincial-federal panel recommended in October 2007 that government not approve the project. “Not many panels have said ‘no’ to industrial development,” says Lorincz. “They usually attach conditions but this panel said outright ‘no.’”

Lorincz was also impressed that the panel suggested the environmental assessment process itself be improved, something she says everyone involved has been asking for for years; and that the panel recommended Nova Scotia develop a coastal zone management plan. “Their victory didn’t just serve Digby Neck, it served the whole province,” said Lorincz.

Don Mullin, vice chair of the Partnership, says the five and a half year fight was exhausting. “But I never again want to hear that you can’t fight big business or government,” he says. “This demonstrates when you are on the side of right, you have to fight.”

Mullin says the group felt an obligation to protect the environment of the Neck and Islands. “People live here because it means something special to them. It’s a special place with special bonds and special meaning. You could say it soothes their soul. “When you tear a place like that apart, you can’t build it up again. “And that is what made it such an overwhelming feeling to win – because we felt an obligation to try and keep it that way.”

Mullin says the “constellations lined up” for them in a way he’s not sure could happen again.

Three levels of government (the local MLA, the municipal council and the federal MP) all opposed to the quarry.

The community supported the group in excess of $100,000. They found knowledgeable and dedicated people to help them. “And above all, this was a very strong and principled panel, that perhaps set new standards for future environmental assessments. “Social values will play a much bigger role in future assessments.”

Mullin says the Partnership has not celebrated because of the painful rifts the quarry fight has left in the community. “We’d like to see the community accept this decision and get on with finding economically and environmentally sustainable jobs but I’m afraid this is going to remain a point of conflict for a long time here.”

NSEN formed in 1991 as an umbrella group for environmental and health organizations in Nova Scotia. Last year, in celebration of their fifteenth anniversary, they presented three Eco-hero awards. This year, seven, including an award for political will to MP Bill Casey.

How does Mullin feel about the Partnership’s Eco-heroes award? “We’d almost prefer to downplay it – you know, why keep the tension and conflict out there in the community?”