On October 19, 2011 the proponent announced they were abandoning their Option 2 proposal (their newspaper advertisement here, our comments here) and would instead pursue “re-development on the Ministry’s originally offered Option 1 site”.
Such a redevelopment requires an environmental assessment. But instead of restarting the environmental assessment process, on May 30, 2012 the proponent released an Addendum to their 2009 Environmental Screening Report. This presented a new proposal they refer to as “Alternative 1A”, and we found this to have even more problems than their previous proposals.
One of our concerns is that a fundamental component of the environmental assessment process is meaningful public consultation, and this includes a “public information centre” (PIC) which is a public meeting at which the proponent presents their proposed project so the public can learn about it and the proponent can receive and respond to conerns.
The proponent held a PIC in Bala for their Option 1 proposal in 2007, and they held a PIC for their Option 2 proposal in 2008.
The proponent has never held a PIC for their new proposal – they claim there’s no need, since they already presented Option 1 to the public.
Here are some diagrams, you be the judge whether they have already presented their new proposal to the public:
- Option 1, as presented at the 2007 PIC is here (property boundaries and text added).
- Option 2, as pesented at the 2008 PIC is here (note the powerhouse would be south of the Crown land which is directly south of the north falls).
- The proponent’s new proposal “Alternative 1A”, as presented in their 2012 Addendum, is here.
To note:
- You’ll see that the proponent’s new proposal “Alternative 1A” is the first time the proponent has presented to the public a proposal that could be built solely on Crown land.
- As shown here, compared to the proponent’s Option 1 proposal, the new proposal would be more than 60′ closer to base of north falls, and would be angled 45° closer towards north falls. This has significant negative, unaddressed, and unmitigated impacts on public safety and marine navigation.
These are important changes, but more than that, this is a new site and orientation which has never been presented to the public before. The proponent has not addressed this new proposal’s public safety and other new concerns.
To get an expert opinion on whether the environmental assessment process should be restarted we retained an environmental consultant knowledgable in this process, and their report is here.
The SaveTheBalaFalls.com technical report on the proponent’s Addendum is here.
Both the consultant’s report and our report were sent to the Ministry of the Environment during the 30-day public comment period for this Addendum, along with this cover letter.