Part of Burns Bog being destroyed In 1996 for a cranberry fawn. Photo credit:Don DeMille
Sandhill cranes the Bog. All photos on this page and the next. Photo credit:Don DeMille
Buy Burns Bog Now!
With the latest Burns Bog development scheme roundly rejected by the people of the Lower Mainland, we must move quickly to fully and finally protect the bog from further ads to destroy it. It must be purchased and designated a park.
Delta Fraser Properties, owner of most of the bog, has made it clear that the "lungs of Greater Vancouver" are up for sale. But if the Provincial Government isn't interested in buying, they'll push to have the bog rezoned for development.
We have a choice. We can either buy out the privateer now and preserve a priceless piece of when wilderness, or stand by and let development destroy the bog. Failing to act now leaves the door open for other mega-development schemes to be floated after the next municipal or provincial election.
Protecting Burns Bog as a park is a bit more complicated than in cases where all the lands are publicly held. Biologist and conservationist Don DeMille, a champion of this wildlife-rich wetland for 37 years, has some practical suggestions on bow the privately held parts of the bog can be acquired and protected.
The City of vancouver, owner of 627 hectares of the bog for a garbage dump (only 268 hectares of which are being used for this purpose today) would be a key player. The City should turn over its lands to the park project, along with its more than $20 million( "dump-closure" (Solid Waste Capital Reserve) fund. The city has, after all, done rather well in the 38 years of this huge landfill operation, with annual profits of up to $20 million gained through dumping fees.
The money made from operating the dump for a few more years should be used to help quickly buy out Delta Fraser Properties and other smaller owners of bits of the bog. This plan mug only involve expanding the dump upwards and not outwards onto more of Burns Bog.
If Vancouver City Council thinks that this is a poor bargain, they should consider the fact that an acceptable operating plan for their Bums Bog landfill has never been submitted to the Provincial Government's environmental authorities. This kind of dump, built on unstable terrain, is now forbidden under recant provincial rules.
DeMille, who once worked for the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Federal Department of the Environment, also believes that Federal Fisheries Minister David Anderson should financially help save the bog. "The whole bog is fish habitat," DeMille points out, "with at least one significant salmon stream, Cougar Creek." This creek, which rises in Surrey, was diverted into a ditch in the 1970s and should be restored to its original course within Burns Bog. The lands along this course could be acquired with federal salmon enhancement funds.
Other sources of purchase funding are possible. Several years ago the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) earmarked $5 million for bog acquisition. The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) has un-spent money earmarked to "replace" bird habitat lost when the third runway at Vancouver Airport was built a couple of years ago. There are also the Provincial and Federal Millennium Funds and the Fraser Basin Fund. In addition, the Burns Bog Conservation Society is fundraising for the bog's purchase. Other good funding ideas are contained in the B.C.'s Park Legacy Project final report, presented to the Provincial Government on February 23, 1999, such as a slight increase in gasoline tax (with allocation of the increased tax revenues to parks) and establishing a new "green lottery" specifically for park acquisition.
Photo credit:Don DeMille
What is a fair price for the bog? A lot less than the $75 million figure being touted. Since the public will never allow mega-projects there, the bog's value must be based on its current zoning for cranberry farms and peat mining. Considering the strength of the public opposition to any kind of development, how much longer will the bog owners want to hold on paying some $750,000 a year in municipal taxes plus an estimated $160,000 per month in interest payments on the $25 million provincial loan?
If the owners refuse to sell at a fair price, expropriation is the last resort. If lands can be expropriated for "the higher good" of reservoirs and hydro and road right -a-ways, certainly expropriation can be used to enable park protection for a unique and wildlife-rich ecosystem critical to the health of the environment for almost one-third of all British Columbians.
