I saw an absolutely outrageous sight on Sunday, a sight that left me speechless with the knowledge that citizens have to fight for even the most basic respect from our government. And as a resident of Delta, you'd think I would have learned by now.
We already know the Gateway folks (who naturally blame the consortium) have changed many of the promises and plans for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, so much so they had to reopen the environmental assessment process.
Gosh, says Gateway, we didn't know we had to dispose of so much excavated material, so now we want to fill an 11-acre, forested site adjacent to Burns Bog. And, well, we understand now how upset everyone was about our decision to use culverts rather than bridges over the ravines in North Delta, so we have backed off that suggestion... but, gosh, culverts are cheaper and we had to try.
Oh, and by the way, we are sorry we forgot about the required riparian setback along the streams... but bulldozing the soil up to the water was just so much easier.
And wherever did all of you get the idea there would be highway exchanges in the industrial areas? Intersections are obviously cheaper and we never said the highway was a non-stop industrial corridor. Goodness no. And all that money spent on the environmental assessment? Well, we had to use some design, didn't we?
But all those deceptions are nothing -- nothing -- compared to what they are doing along the highway alignment in North Delta. Remember those pretty pictures of a clear-cut bluff with cement walls and a tiered highway? Those dozens of homes, many of them owned by Delta's heritage families, bought and razed?
No remaining home was going to be less than 50 metres from the wall. No remaining home was going to see trucks on the highway. Sound walls were going to be built. No school was closer than 500 metres. The ravines and streams were protected.
Well, at this moment that tiered highway has disappeared. It's four lanes wide and new survey stakes have the pavement ending at the doorstep of homes. No more wall, just a 10-foot wide sloped ditch that will direct noise right into the homes.
Brooke Elementary is now 250 metres from the highway. Animals are displaced, wandering around with no corridors to what is left of their habitat. People are stunned. And a community has been cheated.
And so should all of us be stunned. Gateway assures me they are not happy with the proposed new alignment, and have asked the consortium for alternatives. Will the alignment return to the original tiered highway? They can't say.
Gateway says it has to approve changes to the "preliminary design." How, then, does construction along a new design, costing hundreds and thousands of dollars, happen without Gateway knowledge or approval? And why don't the people of this community deserve the very best of consultation when things change?
Facing big government and big corporations in a desperate effort to save what is left of your quality of life should not be happening at this stage.
We have a message to the consortium: your new design is not going to happen. We aren't going to let it happen.