Ladysmith's contaminated harbour comes with a tiny price tag

LYLE JENISH

The Globe and Mail

June 2, 2007

LADYSMITH, B.C. -- Fourteen glorious acres of Vancouver Island ocean waterfront immediately off the Trans-Canada Highway and only 45 minutes north of Victoria - for $1.
The Globe and Mail has learned that the province has reopened negotiations with the Town of Ladysmith to sell a highly valuable and highly contaminated waterfront property. The province may be willing to part with the land for a dollar if the buyer pays cleanup costs.
Jessica Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, said the province "cannot confirm the $1 amount." She agrees that talks are under way to revive the remediation and development process that was terminated last year.
"We are just starting to work with Ladysmith again and feel it is premature to comment at this time," Ms. Woodburn said.
Ladysmith Mayor Rob Hutchins did not respond to messages left at his home and at city hall.
If a deal is reached to put 98 acres of waterfront on the market, prospective buyers should be forewarned: plug your nose and don't eat the shellfish.
The town clings to a steep hillside overlooking Ladysmith Harbour 88 kilometres north of Victoria. James Dunsmuir built it in 1899 for his Vancouver Island coal miners. In April, 2000, Harrowsmith Country Life magazine named Ladysmith one of the 10 prettiest towns in Canada. Tourists from the United States consider the town of 7,500, with its steep streets and Edwardian architecture, to be San Francisco writ small.
Originally known as Oyster Harbour for its abundant bivalves, Ladysmith Harbour was converted to heavy industrial use over a century ago. Activities included a copper smelter, coal washing and load-out facilities, and a log dumping and sorting area. Until the 1960s, Ladysmith discharged raw sewage into the harbour.
From the crest of Roberts Street, looking east, bracketed by Slag Point to the south and Williams Point to the north, the Strait of Georgia backdrops Ladysmith's weedy, derelict harbour foreshore.
Slag Point - officially Slack Point - is a triangular spit. Tides force water to eddy along the northern edge.
According to Agriculture and Lands, Slag Point is a 13-acre parcel of landfill, built from coal slack and is on the province's Contaminated Sites Registry. Soaring remediation costs have derailed provincial, aboriginal and municipal plans to develop it.
Dozens of red well-heads, each about a metre tall, probe deep into Slag Point, monitoring emissions and toxicity. Along the north edge of the spit, the bizarre constitution of the landmass is revealed in a two-metre-deep trench. Beneath a 20-centimetre veneer of topsoil is coal and black aggregate. Where the ocean meets the spit, the seabed and shallows are also black.
Ed, 77, worked for Comox Logging & Railway Co. for 50 years - 10 of them in Ladysmith Harbour, on and around Slag Point. He says the "sludge" runs deep into the harbour.
"Slag Point was used as a dry-land sorting yard for logs and a place to wash coal, but it was sinking. So they brought in material, like gravel and rocks. But it still kept sinking and squishing out," said Ed, who declined to give his last name.
Peter and Yvonne Cox, who walk the municipal park south of Slag Point with Ed, believe Ladysmith Harbour is irreparable. Mr. Cox says developers who had investigated the site left with their noses plugged: "They discovered that when the tide goes out, there is a tremendous stink."
A 2005 site analysis report prepared by Golder Associates Ltd. for Agriculture and Lands found hydrogen sulphide odour in the coal fill at depths beyond 12 metres.
About 180 metres north of Slag Point is Ladysmith Community Marina. "The odour is still bad, but it has been getting better," said wharf custodian Marv Mielnichuk, who has lived on a boat tied to the dock for three years.
Mr. Mielnichuk says that as redevelopment talk gained momentum in 2004, commercial activity has changed. Logs are being dumped outside the harbour before they are brought inside. Still, the industrial nature of the harbour remains: "Some days the bay is full of wood waste. That is not from 20 years ago, that is from last week."
Mr. Mielnichuk believes Slag Point and the waste dumped in the harbour have interrupted tides and eddies, creating pockets of slow-moving water. He points to areas where, when the tide is down, peninsulas of coal stretch hundreds of metres into the water.
Mr. Mielnichuk is optimistic. Walking along the docks, he points out starfish and red rock and Dungeness crab: "It is not dead, animals are returning."
Similar optimism ruled in 2006 when, with great enthusiasm, the province, natives and the Town of Ladysmith initiated a process to redevelop the harbour.
Eventually, six development companies were short-listed and First Principles Development Group, a consortium of B.C. builders, was invited to make a pitch. It included a 130-room hotel, 120-seat restaurant, 500 residential units, a 400-ship marina, a senior's centre, commercial village and 200-seat conference centre on the harbour.
Most Ladysmith citizens attending a public meeting on the proposal spoke passionately against it. They expressed concerns about First Principles' financial commitment to the project and remediation plans - even though its remediation cost estimates were triple the $8.95-million estimated in a 2005 government-commissioned report.
First Principles estimated costs in excess of $30-million. The redevelopment process was terminated on July 24.
Bud Bell says Ladysmith Harbour and Slag Point should be left alone.
"If we leave it like it is, it has been like this for a long time, it will not hurt us," said Mr. Bell, a commercial diver and owner of Sealegs Kayaking Adventures, one kilometre south of Slag Point. He regularly takes kayak tours around Slag Point, and says he is not worried about toxicity or heavy metals. He believes scrapping or cleaning could release hazardous silt.
However, Mr. Bell knows what is at stake: "This is the last bastion: there ain't nothing like Ladysmith Harbour on the entire coast. This is it."