December 15, 2009 – An article in yesterday’s Chilliwack Progress (B.C.) quoted a rare alternative viewpoint in the aggregate approval process.

B.C. Mines Minister Randy Hawes said critics of a proposed gravel removal plan for the Fraser Valley are “terrorizing” communities in the region by fanning the flames of unfounded fears.

And those critics may “unwittingly” be doing communities more harm than good, he says, as the plan would save taxpayers “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in legal fees, and maintain an affordable source of aggregate, most of which is bought by local governments with taxpayers’ money.

Hawes also says the charge that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) recently approved by Fraser Valley Regional District directors was done “in lockstep” with the gravel industry is “frankly, a bunch of drivel.”

Public hearings were not held during the five years the MOU was being hammered out, he says, because there would always be someone opposed to some part of the plan and “we would not have completed the project.”

Having elected FVRD directors on the Aggregate Pilot Project committee was a “balanced way” of including residents’ concerns in the MOU, he insisted.