Ladner development held destructive, costly
Delta municipal council should not issue a land use contract to Dayhu Investments Ltd. for an 850-family housing development in Ladner Marsh, the director of Douglas College's Institute of Environmental Studies has warned.
In a brief submitted to Mayor Tom Goode and members of council, the Greater Vancouver Regional District, provincial fish and wildlife branch, federal public works ministry, Canadian Wildlife Service and the B.C. Wildlife Federation, B.A. Leach warns against making a permanent commitment "to a development which constitutes a serious loss of natural estuary habitat, and which could inflict upon the municipality major and costly problems of maintenance, management and servicing."
The property is mainly marshland along the south arm of the Fraser. Fishermen claim the development would destroy 70 percent of the river's salmon industry.
Though Leach neither substantiates nor rejects this statistic, he does have this to say:
"The developers have purchased a marsh at a time when no one can pretend ignorance of the environmental and social values of such habitats.
"They claim that they can mitigate the loss of such values and enhance the remaining marsh. If they fail, as seems likely, with 850 families immediately beside the site of their attempts to improve on nature, the municipality and its taxpayers will be left with the consequences: a damp housing estate beside a truncated and degraded marsh — a singular monument for the year of Habitat."
Dayhu has made much of its "mitigation and enhancement" proposals for the marsh area it controls next to the proposed development site but Leach dis-
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misses them as having no lasting value. The company's claim that it ". . . will increase the biological productivity of the remaining natural area in order to compensate for taking portions of the site habitats out of production" it describes as a "gross exaggeration."
Of the seven major plant communities in Ladner Marsh identified in an environmental study B.C. Research made for the developer, those nearest the river were deemed to have the highest 'sensitivity' to change and the highest direct value to the marsh, slough and river ecosystems, Leach relates.
"In view of the nature of the proposed development, the question of sensitivity is almost irrelevant because the filling of the area required will entail the total destruction of the plant communities, irrespective of their degree of sensitivity.
"Thus the loss of tree, shrub and willow-fescue communities buried by this development will reduce the biological productivity of the remaining area. Comparison between the size of the area lost and the narrow band of dyke slope to be re-vegetated indicates that the 'compensating area' is only about five percent of the area of trees and shrubs lost."
Furthermore, points out Leach, the percentage will become even smaller if areas are left open to grow the recommended seed mixture of agricultural species, while attempts to plant wild species in a natural environment dominated by other species "simply defy the processes of nature."
He says it is unrealistic to expect that Dayhu's proposed 'natural area' will survive without substantial damage. A chain link fence will be more of a challenge than a barrier to children who will use the sloughs as a dumping ground for all kinds of garbage. The proposed recreation area and 'sanctuary' will soon become an embarrassment and expense to the municipality, a source of danger to children and of concern to parents.
In any case, the developer has not committed himself to the sanctuary's continued maintenance, Leach contends.
"Yet it is evident from experience elsewhere that such areas require considerable management and maintenance if they are to remain intact and safe for human use.
"The public must, therefore, recognize that, in addition to the cost of purchasing the 'natural area' (presumably at cost), it will also have to bear the continuous expense of maintaining its 'naturalness' under the adverse conditions imposed by the extremely close proximity of a large housing development containing over 850 families."
The brief attacks the very premise on which the developer proposes the housing project —
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that Ladner "... requires additional land for development", is "an existing established urban area located in a flood plain" and is "committed to further development through early settlement."
Ladner began as an agricultural community initially dependent upon river communications while developing as a centre for salmon fishing and canning, the brief recounts.
Loss of farmland, reduced viability of the remaining farms, the burden of rush-hour traffic, the reduction of natural or agricultural lands on the Fraser River "have all raised questions about the wisdom of further suburban growth in Ladner," Leach says.
"Yet this proposal ignores these doubts and assumes that, once committed to development of this nature, Ladner has no choice but to go on and to accept a further 850 families on a unique marshland of priceless value."
Fishermen pickets hit Ford campaign
SEATTLE — Fisherman William Carlson, 24, remained in serious condition in hospital here undergoing treatment for shotgun wounds in his forehead after he was shot by a fisheries department agent October 24 in Hood Canal.
The shooting was the climax of violence between commercial fishermen and state fisheries officials in Puget Sound's so-called "fish war," traceable to a 1974 court ruling upholding a 19th century treaty guaranteeing Washington Indian bands half of each harvestable salmon run.
Bruce Gruett, assistant director of field services for the state fisheries department, said the latest trouble started October 20 when officers tried to arrest a fisherman for fishing illegally at the mouth of Hood Canal. As agents aboard the patrol boats attempted to make the arrest, swarms of other boats surrounded the state agents.
Angry fishermen were on hand when a campaigning President Ford arrived here October 25.
Several dozen fishing vessels greeted Ford when he travelled via hydrofoil to a waterfront park to deliver a speech, but the president made no public acknowledgement of the demonstration.
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