Vaughn Palmer: The education of Sonia Furstenau — living with setbacks, missed deadlines, repeated assurances
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2019 02:15:20 +0000
VICTORIA — Green MLA Sonia Furstenau didn’t disguise her frustration Thursday when addressing the latest setback with a contaminated soil dump at her community of Shawnigan Lake.
The proximity of the dump to the local watershed is the concern that got Furstenau into politics, into the legislature and into the power-sharing partnership with the NDP government.
But despite her connections, the New Democrats this week granted a 10-month extension to the owner of the dump on an order to close the site.
The now abandoned deadline was Oct. 31, which had Furstenau riffing on Halloween when she challenged the delay during question period.
“Well no treats for Shawnigan today, just the same old tricks,” she began, before recapping the latest disappointments.
“Conditions have not been met. Deadlines have not been met. The consultants who made the closure plans sued the landfill owners and put builders’ liens against the property. Property taxes have not been paid, and the possibility of forfeiture to the Crown looms in one short month from now.”
Plus owner Cobble Hill Holdings was proposing to import additional soil onto the site, never mind that it would be parked adjacent to the 100,000 tonnes already there.
“Soil that they were ordered to remove — an order that was ignored,” Furstenau emphasized. “What a tangled web!”
Did Environment Minister George Heyman “intend to allow this company to import and stockpile soil to sit unused in piles on this site during the winter rains, leaching sediment into the watershed?”
In response, Heyman went the collegial route: “I believe that the member and I share the same goal, and that’s that the people of Shawnigan Lake continue to have access to clean, safe drinking water.”
But the environment minister had to admit that in the course of reviewing the closure plan, he’d presided over some double-checking and second guessing, then added tough new conditions.
“As the member knows,” Heyman continued, “we have allowed an extension because the process of reviewing the closure plan over a long period of time to ensure that it would be adequate and adding conditions did not allow the work to be completed this year.”
As the member knows. That would be Heyman’s way of reminding Furstenau how under the terms of the power-sharing agreement, the Greens were privy to the government’s plans on critical issues like this one.
But just in case she’d forgotten, he added an assurance: “We added additional conditions, including new shallow monitoring wells and work to ensure that the site was secure over the winter rains. That work has begun. No additional soil has been placed on the site nor will it be until we are assured that it is not containing contaminants.”
Furstenau wasn’t inclined to be placated. “Perhaps we share the same goal,” she replied. “But we have certainly different approaches to how to achieve that.”
She’d already broken publicly with Heyman earlier this year, when he decided the 100,000 tonnes of soil could remain on the site as part of the closure plan.
Balking at the estimated $18 million cost of removal, Heyman decided the soil could instead be capped with additional fill then rigorously monitored.
“I’ve heard that one before,” a deeply disappointed Furstenau had scoffed at the time. “It sounds very much like the same kind of language that we were getting from the previous minister.” Meaning the previous B.C. Liberal minister.
That was July. This week Furstenau chose to remind the current minister of the company’s dismal record in respecting orders and meeting deadlines.
“There is another deadline looming,” she said, referring to Heyman’s decision to extend the closure order to Aug. 31, 2020. “What will the consequences be for this next missed deadline?”
“We have every expectation that work will be completed,” replied Heyman, full of assurances. “We will ensure it is completed.”
Talking to reporters later, Premier John Horgan repeated the theme.
“I don’t want to dismiss the passion of the member for Cowichan Valley” — that’s Furstenau — “but we are doing everything we can to ensure that we protecting the water of the citizens in the region, as well as making sure that those that put the soil there are responsible for mitigating any impacts from it.”
But Furstenau, who first took up this fight in the spring of 2013, has heard it all before — assurance after assurance, disappointment after disappointment, delay after delay.
Given the central importance of the issue to her political career, she was asked this week why she and the Greens don’t use the ultimate leverage and try to bring down the government over it.
“That’s a good question” replied Furstenau to host Mark Brennae on CFAX radio. “But the consequence of saying, OK, this constituency … well, we’re not taking into account that we are here as representative of our constituency, but also of the whole province.”
Nor would another election, barring the unlikely result of a Green majority, necessarily resolve the issue, she added.
So she will continue to press the New Democrats to make sure their orders and deadlines are respected, all the while hoping that this time will be different.
Not the most satisfying way to get it done. But perhaps the most realistic, her frustrations with the environment ministry notwithstanding.
Call it the education of Sonia Furstenau.