Opponents of a plan to sink an artificial reef in Gambier Island's Halkett Bay have new ammunition against the project: a legal covenant which they say will remove the province's jurisdiction over a key section of the bay, putting it back into the hands of the Islands Trust, which has a policy against artificial reefs.
In late September, a lawyer for the United Church of Canada's Camp Fircom, located on Gambier's south-east side, sent a letter to the Ministry of the Environment. The letter requested that the province honour a legal covenant allowing the camp to withdraw the section of water that adjoins a 26-ha section of the camp's land property from a provincial marine park.
Camp board chair Margie Savigny says this move stems from camp concerns about the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia's (ARSBC) proposed project to sink the 115-m decommissioned warship HMCS Annapolis in the bay sometime in 2010.
"We're a wilderness camp," Savigny said. "We're bringing children, predominantly from the Lower Main-land, to a wilderness experience, and so we want them to be hiking and swimming and having pretty grassroots kind of experiences. So we would not be interested in diving. It would not be something that would meet any of our needs to have a sunken reef."
The reef and accompanying boat traffic, she said, not only jars with the camp's own goals, but could potentially present a risk to the children at the camp.
"There's always a risk factor when something like that is that close to a group of young people," she said. "Not that they're not well supervised. But it's just common sense that if there's a boat out there and it's sunk, [they'll say] 'Let's go see.'"
The letter, written by lawyer Jon Jessiman, also raises concerns about possible liability problems arising from the proposed reef.
"In view of the current state of the law in Canada, the church would risk considerable liability, and the users of our camping and water facilities would be in some danger if the operation of a private/commercial reef were permitted with its consequential increase in vessel and underwater traffic so close to the shoreline and beach area," Jessiman wrote.
By invoking the covenant and pulling the water lot out of the marine park, Savigny said, the water lot transfers from provincial jurisdiction to Islands Trust jurisdiction.
The Islands Trust is a federation of independent local governments which plans land use and regulates development in the trust area, including the waters and islands of Howe Sound. Its policy statement reads: "Trust Council holds that artificial reefs should not be developed in the trust area."
Savigny said the camp believes the water lot that the United Church is looking to remove from the marine park coincides with the proposed location for the HMCS Annapolis.
"We haven't been able to find a map of exactly where [the ARSBC] would have the warship resting," she said. "[The ARSBC] says Halkett Bay, so what we've done is we've clarified our position on the property we have. We're just going to take jurisdiction over it, whereas in the past we hadn't seen any need to."
When contacted, ARSBC president Howard Robins said the society would not comment on the situation.
