{"id":6790,"date":"2024-02-27T17:29:09","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T21:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=6790"},"modified":"2024-02-28T07:51:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T11:51:47","slug":"killing-coastal-protection-act-makes-shoreline-more-vulnerable-queens-residents-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/02\/27\/killing-coastal-protection-act-makes-shoreline-more-vulnerable-queens-residents-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Coastal Protection Act makes shoreline more vulnerable, Queens residents say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brian

Brian and Cathie Mourre live in Eagle Head. (Rick Conrad photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Nova Scotia\u2019s coastline now has even less protection after the province announced Monday that the Coastal Protection Act is dead, some Queens County residents say.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim Halman, Nova Scotia\u2019s minister of environment and climate change, announced the government would not proclaim the long-delayed act, effectively killing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The legislation was passed with all-party support in 2019. Instead, Halman introduced plans, tools and other legislation that would have property owners, municipalities and the province share responsibility for protecting coastal property.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said the government wants to empower coastal property owners to make informed decisions. As part of that, the government introduced a new online coastal hazard map that shows projected sea levels, storm surges and flooding potential to the year 2100.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Residents who have been waiting for stronger coastal protections were disappointed, but not surprised. Len Michalik lives in Eagle Head.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was somewhere between disappointed and vindicated in my thoughts that wow this is really where they\u2019re going with this,\u201d Michalik said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey’ve kicked this can so far down the road that it\u2019s in the ditch and unrecoverable. They promised they were in full support of this when in opposition. \u2026 And ever since they\u2019ve come into power, they\u2019ve done seemingly everything they can to make themselves look good while pushing it to the side.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michalik is part of the group Protecting Eagle Head Beach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was formed in June 2022 when former Halifax mayor Peter Kelly bought a property on Eagle Head Beach and immediately blocked the road through the property which people used as one way onto the beach. The community was also upset that he was damaging the beach and wetlands on the property.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite many appeals to and meetings with Environment and Natural Resources officials, as well as with Queens MLA and Public Works Minister Kim Masland and her staff, the development was allowed to go ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cathie Mourre lives in Eagle Head. She is also a member of Protecting Eagle Head Beach. She said the Tories could have committed to enforcing current environment protections and making them stronger with the new act.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cBut instead they took the easy way out and put it in our hands. We\u2019re not experts, we don\u2019t know how to protect the coastline.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mourre said she\u2019s worried that more of that job will now fall to smaller municipalities like Queens, who have limited resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the thing is Nova Scotia is a coastal province. So what happens in the municipality of Queens isn\u2019t necessarily the same that\u2019s going to happen in the municipality of Lunenburg. So we have two coastlines butting up against one another and we\u2019ve got two different sets of rules, well that’s crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe municipality had bylaws set out and we know they didn\u2019t follow them. The Environment (department) has tons of rules. They didn\u2019t follow their own rules.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Region of Queens Mayor Darlene Norman joined 11 other municipalities last year calling on the government to enact the new legislation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She said that while she is disappointed, the region\u2019s municipal planning strategy and land use bylaw, passed in 2022, has some of the strongest protections in the province.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said she\u2019s more concerned with neighbouring municipalities like Shelburne or the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg having minimal or weaker protections. The Coastal Protection Act would have levelled the playing field across the province.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mourre says she believes property owners should be able to build on their own land. But they should be forced to follow the rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, she says she wants a moratorium on coastal development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd permitting on a beach is totally different than permitting in a subdivision,” she says. <\/span><\/p>\n

“So when this permitting along the coastline happens, (staff) should be getting out from behind their desks and they should be going and looking at the piece of land that people want ot develop. It\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michalik says he\u2019d like to see the municipality resurrect and integrate the Coastal Protection Act into its own bylaws.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I have my doubts that that will happen. We don\u2019t have the resources or the manpower to actually do the investigation, do the research and do all the enforcement on it. I hope for the best but I fear the worst.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Michalik and Mourre said, however, that maybe this will spur more people to pressure governments to do more to protect Nova Scotia\u2019s coastline.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also in danger of having our licence plate motto which is known across the country and around the world, Canada\u2019s Ocean Playground, is going to become the playground for those who can afford it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rest of us are going to have to stay in our designated areas and keep quiet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/coastalactfolofeb2724.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nova Scotia\u2019s coastline now has even less protection after the province announced Monday that the Coastal Protection Act is dead, some Queens County residents say. Tim Halman, Nova Scotia\u2019s minister of environment and climate change, announced the government would not proclaim the long-delayed act, effectively killing it. The legislation was passed with all-party support in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1783,1782,1794,797,79,764,378,235,796,1793,241,1795,818,49,24,1057],"class_list":["post-6790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-brian-mourre","tag-cathie-mourre","tag-coastal-protection","tag-coastal-protection-act","tag-darlene-norman","tag-department-of-environment-and-climate-change","tag-development","tag-eagle-head","tag-eagle-head-beach","tag-len-michalik","tag-nova-scotia","tag-peter-kelly","tag-protecting-eagle-head-beach","tag-queens-county","tag-region-of-queens","tag-tim-halman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6796,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790\/revisions\/6796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}