Sechelt council voted unanimously to amend the District's municipal ticketing information (MTI) bylaw at the April 2 meeting of council, giving bylaw officers authority to issue tickets on the spot when blasting infractions occur.
"If you're going to have a regulatory bylaw that you want to issue tickets for, it should be included in your MTI bylaw to add that extra level of authority," said director of corporate services Joanne Frank. She described the amendment as a "housekeeping" item and said it immediately allows fines of up to $1,000 to be levied. It's a move applauded by Coun. Keith Thirkell.
"It's a fairly minor item, but it has major ramifications," he said. Thirkell has been prominent in advocating for a stronger blasting bylaw now being pursued by council after last November's blasting violation at the Trail Bay Estates property. In that instance, the number of holes drilled into the bedrock before that blast far exceeded the number specified in the bylaw, and many hole diameters were in excess of the bylaw's limits. The District stopped issuing blasting permits after the incident and took blasting contractor Rock Construction and Mining Inc. (RCMI) to civil court, where a fine of $5,025 was levied against RCMI and was paid on Feb. 28. Meanwhile, a separate provincial court case is proceeding between the District and Explosives and Rockwork Technologies Limited, the company the District's blasting consultant, Scott Parker, is affiliated with.
The District's updated blasting bylaw (458-1, 2007) will see the number of holes per blast limited to 60 and the diameter of each hole reduced to two inches (five centimetres). It will also require that a blaster notify all potentially affected property owners before blasting begins and to have an approved blasting plan in place before the work begins. As with the current bylaw, the maximum fine allowed will be $10,000. The bylaw has been given three of four readings needed to make the changes official and is currently receiving input from local building associations. It's expected to come back to the May infrastructure committee meeting, after the District's engineering department has reviewed comments from the builders.
In future incidents, fines won't necessarily be issued for each oversized hole found at a blast site, Frank said.
"An infraction occurs each time an action is carried out not in accordance with the blasting bylaw, but we'd have to look at things on a case-by-case basis," she explained.
