One More Week

People on the Digby Neck area will have to wait a little longer before planning their futures - with or without a quarry. The amount of information handed to the Joint Review Panel (JRP) for the White's Point Quarry and Marine Terminal has led to a delay in releasing the results. The results were expected to be delivered to federal and provincial environment ministers on Oct. 15, but in an Oct. 12 communique, the panel said it required an additional week.

"The panel anticipates that it will submit its final report on October 22," said the notice. "This additional time is necessary to ensure the delivery of a clear and comprehensive report."

The JPR's report is expected to deliver a definitive answer to the community, industry and government on Bilcon of Nova Scotia's proposal to construct and operate a basalt quarry, processing facility and marine terminal at White's Point.

The proposed quarry is expected to operate over a 50-year period and offer some economic stability to people dispossessed of traditional fisheries-based livelihoods. Although many people want that stability, in order to remain in the region, others oppose the operation because of possible catastrophic environmental impacts and a possible opening to the entire North Mountain under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Bilcon project manager Paul Buxton said his team would await the results like everyone else, but people shouldn't be surprised if details of the report aren't released right away.

"The panels report to the ministers, they don't release the documents themselves," said Buxton. "The panel manager did give us a call, a heads up, but essentially the panel will report to the ministers on the 22nd, the ministers will then release the report at their discretion. I would think that would be fairly soon after."

The extraordinary step of empaneling a federal review in 2004 was taken to thoroughly examine the information, pro and con, so provincial and federal environment ministers have the best information on which to base their decisions. The three-member JPR held 13 days of public hearings in Digby this past June and closed the window for submissions July 13. That started the clock ticking on a 90-day deadline for the JPR to deliver its report.

For Whale Cove's Kemp Stanton, the delay is just one more in a journey that's already lasted more than five years. He's hopeful the delay means an end to his frustration.

"We want to get it over with, we want to get on with our lives and there's people that are putting off doing things because of this," said Stanton. "There's just so many things that have been put on hold here, every bit of spare money the community's got has went into this for over five years now - and we want it over with."

He had been planning on traveling to Halifax with fellow Stop The Quarry Coalition member, Andy Moir, Oct. 15 until they discovered the JPR was under no binding obligation to abide by the 90-day deadline.

Upon learning that was the case, Moir said he would wait to discover the report's content before his group would respond. Stanton said he would have to wait like everybody else.

"If I could take the amount of time that I put into this and put it into working to make the lobster fishery and the other fisheries here viable and sustainable, I'd feel an awful lot better about it," said Stanton.

Digby MLA Harold "Junior" Theriault said he heard the 90-day deadline was an estimate and he wouldn't be surprised if the report were delivered in December.

"This has been going on for five years. What's another month or two?" said Theriault while vacationing in BC. "Ninety-five per cent of people are against that for that area. The fear of destroying that pristine little area is not good."

It's difficult to fault the JPR for taking longer than many people thought, they had amassed a stack of documents about 3.5 feet tall by the close of the public hearings. They also received numerous electronic submissions and held the window open for an additional two-week period to allow for late submissions.

The one thing that many people would find hard to swallow is if the JPR recommends the project proceed. The fallout from that event would be felt forever.

"When I went to the hearings, when I started working on this, I was 70 per cent sure it shouldn't go ahead," said Stanton. "By the time the hearings were over, I was 99.9 per cent sure there was no way it should be allowed to go ahead."

In a recent decision by another JPR, they refused to recommend the expansion of a BC mining project, but provided a series of recommendations the proponent should have to follow if government allowed the project to proceed. Buxton said there has not yet been a government decision on that project, but he has said throughout the White's Point process that the role of the JPR is to advise.

"We will wait for the recommendations and review those, then we'll wait for the decision," said Buxton. "There's nothing else we can do."

Stanton said the JPR could come back with 150 recommendations, but he's got no faith in regulations because there would be nobody around to monitor compliance - and it's just another step to heavy industry taking over the region.

"I think we need another place to just go where we can't see anything human and watch a little bit of nature," he said.

Theriault said if the JPR went against what it heard in Digby, the process would never be trusted again in Nova Scotia.

"I would say, 95 per cent of the presentations opposed to it found fault with it all," he said. "That's the wrong place to do it and they're just giving our land away."