8 FILL concerns


ruin a property forever for agriculture, yet pay for the property.” In 2010, the ALC ordered


Malenstyn to stop receiving fill because it didn’t see how it was for farm use. He gave the ALC a farm plan made with agrologist Danny Grant a month later and says he stopped receiving fill in 2011. He built his reservoir and


two cranberry cells (by stripping the land, putting fill down and then placing the original soil on top) before he was stopped again. The ALC issued a stop-work


and remediation order to Malenstyn in May 2017, instructing him to remove all the material, save his cranberry bogs, from the property and appropriately dispose of it at an “authorized disposal site.” Malenstyn says he made enough from fill deliveries to cover most of the costs of converting his property to cranberry bogs. Yet after consulting a second agrologist, Gordon Butt,


creating a farm plan, having WCB inspect the safety of his reservoir and hiring a lawyer for help, he appealed the order and was rejected in late January 2018.


The appeal panel of four


representatives from the ALC suspected he was taking the fill for profit. Among other things, they charged him with the task of proving he was not guilty of this by revealing the income he made. “The Appeal Panel


considers that the motivation for the above ground reservoir may have been the income that could be received from fees," the panel's decision says. Malenstyn did not, nor was


he required, to share his income with the ALC according to his lawyer, Alastair Wade. This wasn’t the only aspect of the appeal process that struck Wade as abnormal. Wade specializes in litigation with nonjudicial bodies such as the ALC and says he had just two hours to


present Malenstyn’s case, where the norm is “as much time as you need.” Nor was Malenstyn given a chance to respond to points the ALC raised in the final ruling. “Under the Farm Practices


Act, you have the right to make dikes and you have the right to make roads on your property and you have the right to farm it in accordance with appropriate farm practices. Mr. Malenstyn produced not one, but two different agrologists which supported his plan to make this a productive cranberry bog,” Wade says.


But what about seeking


approval for taking fill? “The appellant didn't seem to think that he had to have any approval at all,” Collins says. “We have a decade or


more of filling [on Malenstyn’s property]. [He’s] not really growing any substantive amount of cranberries and yet we have this infrastructure that's beyond typical; in fact it’s the only one of its kind in the Fraser Valley.” Malenstyn says his farm


plan shows that he was using the fill for farm use and he can’t farm a “substantive amount” of cranberries because he’s unable to complete construction. “In the end it's a difficult


call,” says Collins, referring to the ALC’s speculation about Malenstyn’s plans. “Ascribing motivations is very chancy. When we said ‘may,’ we don't really know, but we just are going by normal farm practice and procedure that is


COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JULY 2018 nfrom page 7


followed by everybody else and he's outside of those bounds.” Wade says that ignores


how farming works in the real world. “The mere fact that some people don't grow cranberries the same way as other people grow cranberries doesn't make one right and one wrong,” he says. “It's just a different way of doing it.” Malenstyn now grows cow


corn and sells pigs and fresh eggs, which together barely pay his bills. And it’s certainly not enough to fund compliance with the ALC’s order, or take further steps to transform his property into productive farmland in one of the most fertile parts of BC.


Elk know no boundaries Editor: Re: Elk sightings have


producers concerned, June 2018 I found your


article regarding elk on the Gulf Islands very interesting! This could be your next nightmare that could decimate your Islands for agriculture! They eat a lot! When we first moved to


Princeton in 2003, we had over 100 mule deer on our


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one every fall for our freezer and had eight or so friends come and take one. Hunting didn’t make any difference to numbers. The highway took


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more than hunters. At that time, we would have a dozen or so elk cruise through at night during hunting season. They were a novelty, and one was lots for the freezer. Now, just a few years later,


we have six or so deer hanging around – all girls – and this winter we had elk from fall right through till April on our fields, all day and all night. They ate the hayfields down past the crowns, terrorized the haysheds all winter long, picking pieces of hay out between the boards until the whole thing broke, then jumping eight-foot gates to get in, demolishing the metal cattle gates, and finally busting the whole wall of 2x8s out. By the time they left for the hills in April, we counted 105 on the field everyday. Cars, trucks, everybody were stopping on the highway to watch and take pictures. We became a major tourist attraction. MoE started LEH (limited


entry hunting) in late December and early January. Ten tags for the whole area to take anterless elk off of private property only. Tags are not issued to the ranchers who are plagued but to strangers from Surrey or wherever. We had people we don’t know banging on our door wanting to shoot our elk – females caring for last year’s calf, and likely pregnant with this year’s calf! I suspect our elk problem


stems from hundreds of snowmobiles terrorizing them on the mountains. We are their safe refuge. Now, we are waiting for the


wolves to move in. They like an over-population of elk! Bev Greenwell


Happy Hollow Farm, Princeton


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