From: "Brian Meeson"
Subject: Submission to Panel, Attention Steve Chapman
Date: Sun, January 16,2005 5143 pm
To: Comments@WPQ-JointReview.ca

My name is Brian Meeson, a 40 year summer resident of Sandy Cove.

I have a concern that, having read the several hundred pages of public meetings transcripts, does not seem to have been addressed. Indeed, it may be a naive assumption on rvly part that it can be addressed by the panel.

Put simply, we seem to be developing guidelines to assist a proponent that may be a chimera, an entity of legal convenience which could evaporate if significant problems faced it (as did its ghostly relative, Global Quarry, as soon as bills and resistance accumulated. "Bilcon" appears to be a generic name for one of a number of shell companies assumed under a holding company controlled by Clayton Concrete. I cannot be more specific than this because my access to the Bilcon web page is blocked by the URL holder.

However, I feel that the proponent must be required to identify itself clearly and give some specific details about its capitalization and capacity to carry out this project.

Some requirements I would like to see incorporated follow.

(1) Identity of the Proponent.
Beyond the name, is it a wholly-owned subsidiary of another company, or is it a totally independently-owned Nova Scotia company? The Proponent should be required to make this transparent, so that everyone knows who they are really dealing with.

(2) Capitalization.
Tens of millions of dollars will be required to tool the proposed project and, construct the related marine terminal. Where will this money come from? How are we to be assured that it will be adequate for the proposed project should it be approved? How are we to be sure that it will be adequate for compensation should that be necessary? What assurance can we have that, if the project runs into difficulties, the proponent will have set aside sufficient funds to restore environmental damage; or, once again, does the proponent evaporate leaving the mess for others to deal with?

(3) Projected Employment. 
In order that an appropriate cost benefit analysis could be conducted, the Proponent (whose parent, associate or holding company has infinite experiential knowledge of such requirements) should be required to 

(a) list the number and describe the nature and skills required of the jobs expected to be created by the project;
(b) the duration of each category of job
(c) the planned manpower sourcing of each category (i.e., local, Provincial, National., Foreign)

(4) Compensatory Provisions. 
Given the established destabilization of traditional and current ways of Life and resources, the Proponent should be required to commit to the posting of a bond equivalent to the cost of disruption, or at least adequate to convince those affected that the company is acting in good faith and as a good neighbour. The bond should be a sum which could cover potential damages to fishermen, tourist operators, residents and regional infrastructure (highways, seabed etc.)

(5) Inflow Specifics.

(a) The Proponent should be required to specify the nature of ballast and its source. It is assumed that not all the aggregate will go to New Jersey, and not all ballast will be taken on from this one area.

(b) The Proponent should be required to designate proposed infill materials. In other words, with what does the proponent intend to replace the 40,000 extracted tons of basalt per month. There must be iron-clad guarantees that garbage, toxic or non-biodegradable materials will not be shipped into exhausted quarry workings. The proponent must be required to make such guarantees in a way that is legally binding before the project can be approved. Under Chapter II of NAFTA, binding guarantees cannot: be imposed after approval, since they can be challenged as impediments to expected profits.

(c) The Proponent should be required to give a dollar value to planned infill materials and an estimate of the ratio of that value to the value of extracted material.. Since the Province of Nova Scotia has designated basalt as a commodity with no value (i.e. no royalty), the dollar value may have to be based on the sale-value per ton, less extraction, processing and shipping costs. Just because you are a corporation, you can't get something valuable and irreplaceable without paying a high price for it. 

In sum, I would like to suggest additions to the Guidelines that require the Proponent to be a substantial (as opposed to a legal) entity, having the financial capacity to carry out the project in a responsible and responsive manner, and the ability and willingness to fully compensate financially both the affected residents and the natural environment.

Thanks.
Brian Meeson