No Gas on the Dyke
Photo: Jens Wieting
March 2011
If there ever was a textbook example of where not to build a gas station, Dyke Road in Comox is it: a narrow, unstable and earthquake-prone strip of land in the middle of a national Bird Important Area and the second most important estuary for migrating birds in B.C.
Despite widespread community opposition, including opposition from the K'omoks First Nation, the controversial Gas N Go project has been granted a development permit by the Comox Valley Regional District and a highway access permit by the Ministry of Transportation.
There is still a window of opportunity to stop this project before the building permit is granted. Take action - please write to Transportation Minister Shirley Bond.
A 2010 B.C. Court of Appeals decision rejected Sierra Club Canada’s request to quash the development permit for the gas station, allowing the Regional District and the owner to move to the next stage of the project - the building-permit stage.
"Why should anybody be allowed to desecrate the Courtenay River Estuary with a high-risk project simply because there is no adequate legislation or zoning to protect it? The unresolved environmental and safety issues must be dealt with,” said Sierra Comox Valley chair Mike Bell.
"If built, the gas station would pose a danger to human life because of heavy traffic flows on a very narrow road," Bell said. "It is an accident waiting to happen".
Support Sierra Comox Valley with a targeted donation.
Learn more about Sierra Comox Valley's work to protect the estuary.
Read the group's eco-neighbourhood vision.
In recognition of his work to protect the estuary, Mike Bell was named one of Canada's top ten Hometown Heroes in 2010 - the only one from BC - by the national charitable group Earth Day Canada.
The Courtenay River Estuary has the second highest concentration of over-wintering waterfowl in BC, including the Trumpeter Swan, and has been designated a Canadian “Important Bird Area”—a site providing essential bird habitat that contains threatened species, endemic species and a highly exceptional concentration of birds.
