The Cowichan Valley Regional District has recommended the Agricultural Land Commission deny an application by Balme Ayr Farms to remove aggregate from a portion of its farmland and replace it with fill.
Farmers Oliver and Shelley Balme want to rehabilitate their steeply graded land by extracting gravel from the 68-acre plot located east of the Trans Canada Highway near Valleyview Centre. Neighbours have been up in arms, worried about a variety of things including but not limited to noise, dust, the potential for contaminated fill, and the length of the proposed 15-year, nine phase gravel project.
In its recommendation to the ALC, the CVRD noted “the community has expressed concerns about many aspects of this application and the lasting detrimental impacts to their health and safety, and the quiet enjoyment of their properties,” and that “there may be better, viable options such as vineyards or other emerging opportunities less affected by topography that should be explored before such drastic alteration to the land is undertaken.”
The CVRD’s decision came after several meetings, culminating in the CVRD’s Electoral Area Services session on Tuesday night. It comes as a relief to both neighbours and to Cowichan Bay Dir. Lori Iannidinardo.
“This has been a very stressful time for our community and I hope that we once again have the opportunity to really listen,” she said.
Neighbours were all smiles when it was announced during Wednesday night’s board meeting. Despite the CVRD’s opposition to the application, the ALC can still approve the project if it so chooses.
Should it pass at that level, and make it through the Ministry of Mines, the Balmes would still need to apply to the regional district for permission to process the gravel on their property. That would most certainly trigger a public consultation process.
“It’s disappointing,” Shelley Balme said. “In their award-winning corporate strategic plan, it says the CVRD’s objective is to support agriculture. The project is agricultural land reclamation. We are milking 115 cows and have 240 animals on the farm we have to feed and gravel does not grow grass,” she explained. “The CVRD has taken it upon themselves to tell us to make a vineyard. Cows don’t eat grapes.”
Balme said she hopes that the ALC would see the logic in her family’s application.
“At least now it’ll get to run its course and go through the official channels though,” she said. “That’s all we were asking for.”
