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CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Their neighbours changed the coastline and they want it fixed
A long, quiet beach in the tiny community of Wards Brook, N.S., used to be a place locals would visit for calming walks and family gatherings, but in recent years it's become a source of discord and the root of sadness and frustration. Oralee O'Byrne lived in a house next to Wards Brook Beach in her teenage years, and still lives nearby. She said generations of her family have cherished the beach. She scattered her late son's ashes there. She's watched, mournfully, as the landscape has changed. "It's been really painful, actually," said O'Byrne. First, someone built a causeway across the community's namesake brook and used it to bring in heavy machinery to change the brook's path. Wards Brook used to take a sharp turn at the top of the beach and meander along, parallel to the coastline, until it emptied into a small wetland. The redirection sent it across the beach and into the ocean – Greville Bay, to be specific, an appendage of the Bay of Fundy. Next, someone built a wall of armour rock in the brook's former path, intersecting with a right-of-way to the beach. Locals say it used to be possible to drive a vehicle across the brook, directly onto a large sand bar, but now access is limited to those who are capable of climbing down a pile of boulders. "It just seems like it's taken a lot away from us … a lot of memories that still could be made aren't being made," O'Byrne said. "We can't, we don't go to that beach anymore," she added. When the tide is out, the brook is narrow enough to walk or jump across, but when the tide is in, the new mouth of the brook is so wide that it makes a watery chasm in the middle of the beach. It isn't only the beach that's divided. The issue has caused a rift in the community. Dara Bowser lives in the house where O'Byrne spent her youth, ever since he bought it from O'Byrne's mother several years ago. He blames two neighbouring property owners for the changes to the landscape. "They don't talk to me," Bowser said. "I don't talk to them." Looking for government action Bowser and other locals who spoke to CBC News believe the changes to the brook and the beach were done illegally. They point to regulations under the Environment Act that prohibit altering a watercourse without a permit, and prohibit interfering with the path of a watercourse until it's been dry for 40 years. They want the provincial government to enforce the rules and to ensure that any possible remediation is carried out. A spokesperson for the provincial department of environment said the case is "an ongoing matter." They wouldn't make Environment Minister Tim Halman available for an interview or answer any questions. For Bowser, it's been "an ongoing matter," for far too long. He recalls the causeway being built in 2016, followed in 2019 with the brook's diversion and the construction of the rock wall. He's made repeated complaints to authorities and grown increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of action. Bowser has received several sets of documents about the case under freedom of information laws, which show provincial officials began issuing warnings in 2016 against using equipment and moving gravel on the beach. They also show an investigation into the diversion of Wards Brook was underway in the spring of 2019. There was talk of the possibility of charges, but it's not clear whether any were laid. A couple of months later, a conservation officer compiled notes describing an interview with a person who admitted to altering the path of the brook without a permit. The interviewee's name is redacted, but they're described as a resident of the area. The documents also include records of an investigation into the rock wall, including talk of a potential violation of the Environment Act. In 2021, the province ordered the people who built it to move part of it back, out of the brook's original path. Some rocks were moved, but it didn't appease Bowser, who thinks that what remains still stands in the brook's way. Bowser asked for an update in the spring of 2024, and was told in a letter from the department of environment that "the responsible parties" would be required "to re-establish Wards Brook in its pre-disturbance location." The letter said restoration work was expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2024, but nearly 10 months later, no such work has taken place. "They are not disclosing, they are not being transparent about this at all," said Bowser. Pat Mason, another Wards Brook resident, thinks it comes down to political priorities. "When you're a small town, you really don't get noticed," he said. Mason said he and his neighbours have looked for help from a multitude of officials at every level of government and are at a loss for what more they can do. "It's just unfortunate that we have to go to this great length of getting things done," he said. "I mean, something so simple can take so long." Why'd they do it? According to the conservation officer's notes, the person who admitted to diverting the brook said they did it to improve beach access. "[They] claimed that the brook that has always flowed over the beach access road was high (no culvert was ever put in the road). [They] wanted to create a better access road for the locals who go down the beach to enjoy," the officer wrote. In a separate report, an Environment Department inspector said the rock wall was built to prevent erosion, which is a common practice on coastal properties in Nova Scotia. Bowser suspects different motives. With the brook no longer bisecting the coastline, his two neighbours have clearer ocean access from their properties. CBC News made multiple attempts to reach the owners of both properties, but did not receive a response. Why does it matter? Nicolas Winkler, coastal adaptation co-ordinator at the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, said conflicts between community members over coastal issues are common in Nova Scotia. "They can be very visceral…. In some cases we've heard of near-violence happening. We've heard over the years on different coastal access stories of guns making an appearance," he said. Winkler said there is not a good mechanism for resolving these issues, and they often drag on for years. Wards Brook, he said, exemplifies this problem. Wards Brook is a sleepy community made up of a couple dozen residences and a shipbuilding museum that's only open six months of the year. There are no signs leading to Wards Brook Beach; it's known and used primarily by locals. But Winkler said this case goes beyond the immediate impact it has on a small number of locals. He said it's part of a broader issue of coastal stewardship and the importance of the ocean to Nova Scotia's economy and culture. "As we chip away at coastal spaces and we lose that access, whether it's the physical access to the coast or whether it's the quality of the access … we are losing that sense of connection to the coast," he said.
CBC
3 days ago
- Science
- CBC
How climate change in the last Ice Age created the Bay of Fundy tides
Climate change feels like a contemporary issue, but the Bay of Fundy tides have roots in changes that happened at the end of the last Ice Age nearly 12,000 years ago, says a New Brunswick geoscientist. "Climate change is something that happens over and over again," said Catrina Russell, the education co-ordinator for Stonehammer Geopark. "The climate was always changing based on plate tectonics, the orientation of our continents. So at the end of the last Ice Age, a huge amount of water entered the ocean from that melting ice, raising sea levels and creating our tides." Russell is a researcher and educator for the 2,500-square-kilometre geopark in the Saint John area of southern New Brunswick. She recently conducted a tour called Rockin Uptown Tour with Jack Quirion, a biologist and climate change projects co-ordinator for ACAP Saint John. They both try to place geological and climate science in their historic and contemporary contexts, so that people understand the impacts on their lives. Russell said the region is still feeling the effects of the end of the last Ice Age, with rising temperatures resulting both from both human-made climate change and the natural changes in the environment. "What's happening now is that we are still at the end of this last Ice Age, so temperatures are still rising because of that," she said. "But what's happening here is we have a much higher rate." Russell said the geology of the area informed decisions made by earlier generations that continue to shape the lives of the people who live here now. "Geology is the foundation to everything we do, everything we are, it shapes our experience," she said. "Those first Loyalists landing right here on this site, they may not have stopped here if it hadn't been for the geology, for the tides." Over the decades, people who settled in Saint John altered the landscape themselves, doing infill projects on the waterfront to expand the footprint for residents and industry. "Looking at how much the landscape has changed over the last 200 years, and thinking about the hundreds of millions of years of history that have shaped that, it's really interesting," she said. Quirion is particularly interested in rising sea levels and how they will affect the natural shorelines and the ones created by infill projects. Saint John is still doing new developments and there are many existing ones affected by erosion and rising levels. "I've heard some voices in the community concerned where we're spending so much effort developing the waterfront," Quirion said. "We do have to be careful that we're not building things that might eventually end up underwater." ACAP is currently doing research into climate change impacts within the Stonehammer region, collecting information and coming up with mitigation strategies to share with the community. "We'll be looking at preventing erosion or slowing the rate of erosion," he said. "We'll be looking at maybe some ways that we can address this increasing flooding that we're gonna have to deal with." Find natural solutions to erosion and flooding He said they want people to take action that's good for the environment and area residents. "A lot of times people will want to put up a big rock wall on the coastline to prevent erosion and flooding," Quirion said.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'It's a disgrace': Community wants huge, abandoned railcars removed from Bay of Fundy
The community of Walton, N.S., is begging the provincial government to remove four huge, heavy, abandoned railcars from the Bay of Fundy. Heidi Petracek explains how the boxcars got there, why they're a safety hazard, and why there's not much time to clean up the industrial mess.
CBC
06-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Relatives of lost fishers say lives at risk without mandatory vessel stability checks
Social Sharing Relatives of Nova Scotia fishers who died in a 2020 sinking say it's disheartening that little progress has been made on a key safety recommendation requiring assessments of vessel stability. Lori Cogswell-Phillips, the mother of fisher Aaron Cogswell, said in an interview Friday the federal government and the fishing industry are putting crews at risk by not acting more quickly on the recommendation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. "They're just playing with peoples' lives," she said. Since a 2015 capsizing of a fishing vessel killed three people, the safety board has been calling for Transport Canada to mandate stability assessments, which would permit crews to load catch and gear in a way that helps prevent vessels from flipping over. Cogswell-Phillips said having naval architects test fishing boat stability is crucial because it would mean fishers have a more dependable workplace in one of the country's most hazardous jobs. "There's already so many things that can go wrong in terms of rough weather when fishing, at least [with a stability test] you know you're in a dependable vessel that's going to ... get you through what you have to get through," she said. In its 2023 report on the sinking of the Chief William Saulis in the Bay of Fundy — which resulted in the deaths of Cogswell and five other fishers — the safety agency concluded the boat had not undergone a stability test after it was modified. Michelle Thibault, whose ex-husband, Daniel Forbes, died in the sinking, said in an interview Friday that it's hard to keep revisiting the tragedy without seeing recommended reforms completed. "You want to give up because it's really not a fight that I can win. It's between the government and the fishermen, and the fishermen don't want to pay for it [stability assessments] and neither does the government," she said. "What it really comes down to is money. How many people need to die before somebody's going to put the money out to pay for this?" 'Underlying risk ... for a large portion of the fishing fleet' The board noted this week in its annual assessment of recommendations that Transport Canada's response to the decade-old stability recommendation remains "unsatisfactory." It said it is making efforts to "expand awareness" of vessel stability in the fishing industry but added that a voluntary approach won't be sufficient. "The safety board ... continues to strongly believe that until Transport Canada ensures that all small fishing vessels undergo a stability assessment appropriate to their size ... the underlying risk will remain for a large portion of the fishing fleet," the agency said. In an interview Friday, board chair Yoan Marier noted that there are other recommendations aimed at promoting boat stability that remain incomplete. The safety board would like Transport Canada to bring in "additional oversight over [fishing vessel] modifications." "At this point, we have a feeling that we are starting to repeat ourselves. We have had a number of accidents that we've investigated in the past few years ... and they're all significant accidents where [vessel] stability was a factor," he said. "We'd like the Transport Department to put additional efforts into resolving this safety deficiency." The Chief William Saulis should have been tested for stability after its owners added a heavy, A-frame structure for scallop dragging, a protective plate to the boat's stern, and covers to close drainage holes, the safety board said in its 2023 report. Chief William Saulis was returning home On Dec. 15, 2020, the modified vessel capsized in the Bay of Fundy during a gale as it returned to its home port in Digby, N.S. In its report, the board made clear that it had long urged a stricter law on stability assessments and that Transport Canada had not complied. Kathy Fox, chair of the board at the time, said during the report's release that a stability assessment and guidelines prepared by a naval architect are "the only way the crew on these vessels will know the safe operating limits." Crew on the Chief William Saulis followed the industry practice of heavily loading the vessel with catch during the return crossing to the wharf in Digby. Due to the rough weather, the crew had left about half the scallops on the deck with the shells still on, which allowed them to slide about, the report said. About 2,700 kilograms of scallops were stacked almost two-metres high on the boat's deck, likely contributing to the boat's instability and potentially blocking its ability to drain water.
CBC
23-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Grief over loss of diversity expressed at funeral for Bay of Fundy
More than two dozen people gathered to mourn the diminishing biodiversity of Passamaquoddy Bay and the surrounding Bay of Fundy.
