The provincial Minister of Environment and Local Government revealed more of the actions planned to improve the water quality at Parlee Beach and throughout Shediac Bay.
Serge Rousselle announced an additional $1.2 million for infrastructure work and studies to support water quality improvements bringing the total to almost $3 million dollars when you include previous announcements.
He says these investments support a total of 18 projects, some of which are already underway.
“We are setting aside $500,000 to upgrade the Parlee Beach Provincial Park Sewage Lift Station,” says Rousselle. “Other actions include upgrading pump-out stations at two marinas, inspecting and upgrading the Murray Beach sewage lagoon, [and] educating and enforcing responsible dog ownership.”
This comes on top of previously announced initiatives, says Rousselle, “we began with a new water quality protocol and with a new communicationst strategy, we are now investing in concrete actions and we are also funding studies for future decision making and adopting policies to strengthen our environmental protections.”
Rousselle says “we need community support, and together we will address this situation, there isn’t one defined solution, no siliver bullet, but rather will be culmination of our collective efforts that makes the difference.”
The province is also designating Parlee Beach a unique feature of the environment, meaning future developments will trigger Environmental Impact Assessment studies.
Meanwhile, the Vice President of the Red Dot Association says the government actions are too little, too late.
While Arthur Melanson was happy to see a half million dollar investment to upgrade the Parlee Beach sewage lift station, he says that should have been done a long time ago.
“And they’re not addressing the other issues that are there, like they’ll fix this one, [but] how many more places this thing is happening, and how much surface runoff is flowing right into the Bay now?” says Melanson. “And nothing’s being done for that.”
He adds Minister Rousselle’s announcement that future developments will trigger an Environmental Impact Assessment, or EIA, is not going to be enough to improve water quality.
“Now, we’re no further ahead than what we were before because they can start campgrounds or anything tomorrow morning and that it will trigger an EIA,” says Melanson. “That’s no different than what it was before, because before it would trigger an EIA anyway.”
He adds they were disappointed the government chose not to pursue a moratorium on development in the Shediac Bay area.
“When we go back to the presentation that was done by Doug Campbell, from Mount A, and the work that he has done demonstrate the correlation to development and contamination of water,” says Melanson. “Whether it’s human sewage or surface runoff because surface runoff do carry contaminants.”
Melanson says these initiatives, studies and actions should have been undertaken long ago, before the government was forced into action by revelations late last year.
