The Cowichan Valley Regional District has adopted a new soil deposit bylaw.
Ian MacDonald, Acting Manager, Inspections and Enforcement for the CVRD says the bylaw brings the District in line with other Districts and Municipalities in B.C.
“When people bring us a site plan they’ll know where the soil is being dumped. Without having regulation up until now people could bring soil and we may not even know where they are going. We had issues where they were too close to streams so we really want to protect environmentally sensitive areas as well. There’s not a huge burden with regards to cost here, a type A permit is actually free.”
The bylaw establishes a three-tiered system of permitting and requires anyone wishing to deposit soil on a property within the CVRD’s nine electoral areas to apply for a permit.
Permitting exemptions are included for a variety of small scale deposits, such as residential landscaping and sewer works.
The soil deposit bylaw is a separate issue from the contaminated soil dump site at the south end of Shawnigan Lake, as activity on that kind of scale must go through the Ministry of Environment for approvals and permits.
