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Contaminant risk will loom forever

Re: “Guard the water supply,” editorial, March 24. The people of Shawnigan do not want “careful monitoring” or “well-designed emergency plans.

Re: “Guard the water supply,” editorial, March 24.

The people of Shawnigan do not want “careful monitoring” or “well-designed emergency plans.”

No amount of human engineering can compensate for the total unsuitability of a contaminated dump sitting above an aquifer and next to a stream that feeds into the lake that is our source of drinking water.

Contrary to what SIA’s engineers told us at the outset, there is no impermeable 75-metre wall of rock to protect us. Instead, the site is on fractured limestone, through which ground water can travel. If the engineers who assessed the site can get this wrong, how can we expect them to create a fail-safe human-engineered design that will protect our community from dioxins, furans, lead, mercury, DDT and hydrocarbons?

Even if it works for 10 years or 50 years, who will be in charge of the “careful monitoring” of five million tonnes of contaminated soil beyond then?

We cannot accept this risk, which will forever hang over our community.

The people of Shawnigan Lake want the provincial cabinet to make the right decision, and the decision they have the power to make, which is to revoke this permit. They must steadfastly refuse to endanger B.C.’s most precious resource: drinking water.

Sonia Furstenau

Cowichan Valley Regional District director

Shawnigan Lake