{"id":3915,"date":"2012-07-03T12:54:30","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T16:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2012-09-13T22:40:45","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T02:40:45","slug":"the-proponents-new-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"The proponent’s new proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

On October 19, 2011 the proponent announced they were abandoning their Option 2 proposal (their newspaper advertisement here<\/a>, our comments here<\/a>) and would instead pursue “re-development on the Ministry’s originally offered Option 1 site”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The proponent has never held a PIC for their new proposal \u2013 they claim there’s no need, since they already presented Option 1 to the public.<\/p>\n

Here are some diagrams, you be the judge whether they have already presented their new proposal to the public:<\/p>\n