WEST COAST ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: BC law fails to protect fish habitat
Kamloops and Shuswap Lake. Photo by Flickr user autumy.From WCEL staff lawyer Andrew Gage:
A BC Court of Appeal decision issued earlier this month (July 5th) has confirmed that the province’s Riparian Areas Regulation (RAR) by itself provides little legal protection for fish habitat. The RAR is the province’s primary legal tool to protect fish habitat from development located immediately next to streams and lakes…
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[I]t is extremely unclear whether RAR has any legal effect unless a local government has taken the necessary steps to implement it through its bylaws.
The RAR itself, however, establishes a complex “assessment methodology” which professionals (foresters, biologists, engineers, etc.) hired by a developer are supposed to apply in determining how far back development should be from waterbodies that provide fish habitat. The RAR calls this set-back a “Streamside Protection and Enhancement Area” (SPEA), and we pointed out in 2005 that the RAR does not require that SPEAs, once identified, need to actually be protected…
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[A]s the BC Court of Appeal notes, the RAR does not actually prevent development within a SPEA. Instead, the RAR leaves it to a professional hired by a developer to determine whether development within the SPEA will harm fish habitat (with little real guidance from government as to how this is to be determined).
