The steady stream of trucks filled with contaminated waste that have been making their way to the small community of Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island for the last 10 months will come to a stop today after the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the province erred in granting a waste disposal permit for 460 Stebbings Road.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled “a contaminated soil treatment facility is not a permitted use on the property” after finding the provincial Ministry of Environment granted a waste discharge permit to South Island Aggregates in August 2013 that violated local bylaws.
The court ordered an immediate injunction preventing South Island Aggregates from dumping more contaminated material.
“I’m just estatic,” Sonia Furstenau, elected representative of Shawnigan Lake with the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD), told DeSmog Canada about the ruling.
“I’m overjoyed.”
In 2015 the CVRD filed a lawsuit against the permit, which granted the company permission to dump 5 million tonnes of contaminated soil in a local gravel quarry.
According to the permit, the waste could contain furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials known to cause cancer, brain damage and birth defects in humans.