I wish to express my concern with the potential of any wetland being lost to development.
I implore all those that have the power to stop any development in wetlands to exercise the option to veto development. Historically, aggressive development has been the order of the day and this aggression was sold as being good for growing communities by developers.
The world as we know it has changed dramatically over the last two centuries. Celebrating Canada Day this year, I thought of all the potential for the the survival of our “spaceship earth” slowly being eroded away like a stream bank in flood. All green spaces remaining are extremely important to the future of our existence.
When you travel through a new subdivision or commercial development, look closely at it. An area that could filter runoff now diverts it to storm sewers and deposits all the accumulated material in a waterway somewhere without the opportunity to clean itself.
The sole focus of economics can no longer play the major role in decisions of this scale. We must retain farmland as ALR for future use and wetlands for future accumulation of water. A recent study on weather change by SFU demonstrates this warm weather migration north as the major agricultural problem we shall face in the northern latitudes. If we negotiate away what we have left the end is obvious. Either a covenant has to be placed on all ALR to ensure that it shall remain so in perpetuity, or a mechanism developed to stop any future applications for parcels of land being removed from the ALR.
As a sidebar, has there been any thought of how this parcel will affect the future storage of water in the aquifer in Oceanside? Could it be used to water supply for EPCOR? How will this affect the development of a greenway connecting the areas to the south and north? How will this affect runoff? How will this affect traffic flows?
The obvious answer to this application is to reject it.
Bob Tritschler
Parksville