Letter to Editor - Mining Brown Pit

The BC Liberal government proposes to “Rape Mother Langley” but promises to study it first.

The proposed mining of Brown Pit in Langley Township for provincial Port Mann and freeway construction gravel is an unconscionable act which cannot occur without every aspect of community, water safety and environmental integrity being devastated. This is in spite of a long standing moratorium on gravel extraction in the Township of Langley.

Our community group has just learned that “the plan” calls for 1 million cubic yards of gravel removal. This makes their claim of no damage to the aquifer, water quality and community and leaving this ALR land in improved agricultural shape when finished an untrue statement. Let me explain:

Let’s put size in context:

My home is a 6.4 acre lot bordering the south 700 feet of Brown Pit (the area that still has gravel). The foot print of 1 million cubic yards is 1/3rd the volume of the Gizza Pyramid whose base covers 13 acres (exactly double my lot) and attains a height of 450 ft. So the ground footprint of the excavation of my north border would be 700 feet long and 400 feet wide (the pit itself isn’t that wide so it would have to go deeper than the 50 – 100 ft deep to round out to 1 million cubic yards. This is a frightful image.

The damage to the Hopington aquifer would be stunning. All the oil and other toxic material dripping from machinery would travel for miles in the gravel (any one remember Walkerton). The gravel is God’s water filter and with the extraction the gravel would be gone. The natural filtering process destroyed – the damage incalculable.

I have questions and so should you all.

If the provincial government is so incredibly comfortable turning their back on fair play on the Cambie Street corridor and in Delta – would we expect to be treated differently? Should we be comforted by “we’ll do a study” (surveying for the freeway ramp is done as are 4 test wells). Is surveying part of the pre-study process? Do they as we suspect consider this a “done deal”.
With a gargantuan hole 700x400x50-100 feet deep does anyone believe that they will “restore it for agricultural use”? That is being economical with the truth – more precisely a lie. Such a fill project would be virtually impossible – whose quality soil would they steal to fulfill this pipedream?
We recently (last 2 years) were subjected to the filling of part of the old pit. They hauled for weeks making our roads unsafe and dumping illegal material (hog fuel) into the old pit. They contaminated adjacent wells (hog fuel) and when finished it didn’t make a dent in the old gravel evacuation space. Restore to agricultural use indeed!
Is the ALR protecting our bread basket or are they a thinly veiled Liberal rubber stamp? We’re told that this project has preliminary ALR approval – how can that be possible if anybody is doing their job or had a functional conscience.
Our group is methodically gathering facts and information and the more we gather (1 million cubic yards) the more frightened and outraged we become.

Many people are concerned about this issue. Many more facts are still hidden from us but we will find them. Meanwhile I will not stand quietly and idly by while unprincipled people in government without a conscience commit a premeditated Rape of Mother Langley.