Google Satellite photo of Gravel Pit. Taken July 2021 prior to reclamation.
November 23rd, 2021
Warren Wild gave LMT an update on Tuesday that the RCMP contacted him. After reviewing the Criminal Code and Transport Canada Regulations, the RCMP told him that there is nothing they can charge the RM with criminally. “Because there is no house, there is nothing on the quarter, so there is nothing stopping them. I said, other than they didn’t have permission which we explicitly told them to get permission. But they didn’t have the decency to call.”
Warren said the RCMP told him that they called the RM and spoke to the CAO, who said that the Council had passed a resolution that it was okay to do it. “Okay for who? For them? and for what reason? there was no reason to do this. That’s the biggest thing, just a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.”
Warren feels that the RM should be required to get permission from landowners because he said their reasoning for doing so wasn’t valid.
On October 12th, after Division 4 Councillor Garry Dixon raised concern there may be future drainage issues in an area he thought looked low. The Council unanimously agreed to have a drone fly over the land at the cost of $2500 to take measurements of the reclamation site on the Wild’s land.
In early 2020 ASL Paving was awarded a 13 million contract for a Provincial highways project to pave part of highways 322 and 220 and into Rowans’ Ravine Provincial Park.
The RM issued ASL a permit to remove the aggregate from the Wild’s land after a lengthy and contentious permitting process around the RM’s concerns of potential environmental impact the excavation could have on a watercourse that runs through part of the property.
ASL officially completed the highway project in September. The final bookend for ASL was to complete the site’s reclamation. They, along with the RM and the landowner, agreed to the terms of the reclamation. Once completed, the RM would release the bond. ASL did finish the work, and the Landowners said ASL did it well.
During the Council’s discussion on October 26th, Councillor Dixon said they were using a drone to evaluate the depression because the landowners didn’t give the RM permission to go on the property. Reeve Schmidt asked, “what was the reasoning for no drone? It’s a flyover, they are not walking on it.” The CAO replied, “its private property, and it’s illegal to fly drones over private property.” A point which Schmidt would again disagree with later in the meeting.
Reeve Schmidt said ASL’s bond covered the reclamation. Councillor Whitrow said the RM couldn’t release the bond until ASL proved that they met the conditions.
CAO Brandi Morissette said she received a call from the property owner, who was unhappy with the decision saying, only he and his brother would decide whether the reclamation was satisfactory, despite the CAO explaining its purpose. She also received a call from ASL, reporting the reclamation was complete, and the property owners were pleased.
Representatives from ASL, Braeden Adamyk and Jesse Kish, were visibly frustrated during the October 26th council meeting. Kish said he has participated in nearly 100 reclamations of pits “what we did is exactly typical of every highway project.”
CAO Morissette pointed out that the agreement said- the developer “shall” ensure the area be reclaimed to the pre-disturbance land capability or a postcondition and land use example: conversion to a wetland that is satisfactory to the municipality. Morissette also stated that conservation and reclamation procedures by the developer “shall” be in accordance with the reclamation guidelines, meaning that it’s up to the developer to ensure that it’s done. She didn’t believe it was the municipality’s responsibility to police and ensure that ASL did it. “So if they’ve done that, I don’t know why we are fighting the fact that maybe its not done right when they have the responsibility to do it correctly,” said Morrissette.
“I’m telling you right now it’s done correctly. I think I’ve went above and beyond. I think I went as far as to pick every rock in that quarter to make it look appealing to everyone driving by,” said Kish.
Dixon went on to say that the excavation changed how it was before. Kish said there were pits all over the RM and asked if they were holding him to the same scrutiny as themselves. Schmidt said he knew the landowner to the north and would ask them to take a photo from the fence. Councillor Arndt said that there is no way of knowing if water might drain into the watercourse due to the nature of the soil and topography. He said, “I don’t know why people are worried about this, and any water that might or might not get down to that water course we have no way of knowing. That’s not the major source of that water course.”
The Reeve said that some of the property owners that were around the area were concerned. He said the RM had the initial profile from the LIDAR data, and there could be a comparison with the drone information.
Councillor Whitrow said he was okay with a holding area for water but wanted to know that it would drain back into the watercourse if it were to overflow. “What you guys have done looks good, I’m impressed by the way you guys have handled this whole thing.” Council agreed to have Councillor Arndt go to the landowners and explain why they wanted the drone report done.
After the meeting, we reached out to landowner Murray Wild. He said they were not giving the RM permission. He later said he had spoken to Councillor Arndt and explained that they wanted their Division Councillor, Garry Dixon and the Reeve to call them and not Arndt. After his conversation with Arndt, Murray Wild said his nephew saw the drone operator flying a drone over their land. As a result, the Wilds filed a complaint with the RCMP.
Murray Wild said they weren’t in favour of the drone flyover because “I’m happy with the job that ASL did. At the end of the day it’s my land and how is it the RM’s issue? I don’t believe they’d be doing it if it wasn’t me.”
Wild believes the RM has an issue with him because he was on the previous RM council and said it was more than just contentious.
He said these past issues are the reasons this project has been so difficult. Wild said that ASL has their own drone “that’s why this is such a sham and an unnecessary expense to the ratepayer.” Wild said he didn’t understand the RM’s logic because the RM’s wasn’t hurting them but ASL.
At the November council meeting, the Council discussed the drone flyover. Councillor Arndt asked if Reeve Schmidt and Councillor Dixon had contacted the Wilds. Both Reeve Bob Schmidt and Councillor Dixon said they hadn’t. Arndt asked why not. Dixon said he thought because there was a motion to fly the drone and the RM had decided it was legal, “we went ahead and did it.”
“I just shake my head; this whole project has created enough hard feelings. It wouldn’t have taken anything to hear from the people that they’ve been working with even if it was legal to have a brief discussion about it,” said Arndt. “Yeah, well in my experience phones work both ways,” said Dixon. Warren Wild says he had tried at least twice to contact Reeve Bob Schmidt before they issued the extraction permit. “I left at least one or two messages with him and he never ever called me back....They never once initiated a phone call or a letter or anything to us about this whole project. Never once. And if they did say they did, they are lying...It’s very odd that Garry Dixon couldn’t muster the courage to call Warren or myself,” Murray Wild told LMT.
Both the CAO and the Public Works Manager had copies of the drone report. The CAO said they received it the previous day and it would be presented to Council at the Admin meeting. Councillor Arndt requested to send a copy to ASL and the Wilds. The CAO said it would be after Council viewed it.
The Public Works Manager read out a portion that said some water that would’ve gone into the canal would be stored instead in parts of the area. This storage should slightly reduce the risk of flooding downstream. “Well that’s a big positive, flood control.” Said Arndt. “It also eliminates the amount of water that’s available for people downstream” said Dixon. “Downstream is the lake.” Said Arndt. “No, downstream is Rudy’s land and that’s where he sometimes uses the water for his horses…” said Dixon, referring to former councillor Rudy Thomson.
Dave van Zeyl is a consulting engineering geologist and owner of DVZ technologies that the RM commissioned to fly the drone over the land. He said the cost for the flyover was $1500, not $2500. When we first spoke with Van Zeyl, he said, “I thought they didn’t give permission to physically go on the land. I wasn’t actually aware that anyone had actually asked for permission for a drone flyover. I thought that the only thing that was discussed was that no one was actually physically to go onto the land...I would’ve been extremely surprised that I would’ve been given approval to go ahead with this if somebody had indicated that.” After thinking about it further, Van Zeyl contacted LMT to say he wanted to retract those comments. Van Zeyl raised a point that a drone wouldn’t be any different than a satellite. He noted that satellites fly over and look down at property all of the time. “If you take the argument [that] a landowner can say ‘look I don’t want somebody doing some type of an airborne survey or something over my land.’ I think when you take it from that perspective, well does that mean…we need to tell the satellite companies that they have to take their satellites out of the sky because there is this one person here that doesn’t want any sort of any airborne survey system going over top of their land…” Van Zeyl wouldn’t give a range as to the height he was flying the drone over the land.
Street view on google maps would also be another example. Van Zeyl pointed out that faces and license plates are blurred out, and there are limitations and a difference between capturing vacant land and people. Google’s policy says that they protect the privacy and use blurring technology for faces and license plates.
Van Zeyl said the regulations in Transport Canada “This issue of using drones over top of private property is not dealt with over those regulations.”
“As it is right now it’s not illegal to fly a drone over top vacant land for the sake of generating scientific information.” Van Zeyl said after further reflection he was taking back his comments that if there were a landowner who didn’t want it done, he wouldn’t do it. “It would totally depend on the situation. If there is a potential impact on a whole number of people downstream and the environment. That is my priority. One little unhappy person that I know I’m not doing anything illegal anyway, that’s not my concern. My concern is the other people that could potentially be impacted here and actually finding out some scientific information. In that situation I would absolutely do a survey. I know it’s not illegal, so why not.”
Van Zeyl said the report would alleviate concerns that the council or area residents had of the reclamation. “I don’t think I’ve seen a nicer, better reclaimed site, it’s completely amazing.” “Nobody could’ve asked for a nicer job to be done. This site should be used as a case example of how to reclaim a site.”
Southey RCMP Detachment Commander Douglas MacDougall couldn’t confirm or deny that someone had filed a complaint. As for the law, he said that every case needs to be judged on its own merit/totality and that there are no laws against flying a drone over private property.
“… there are Criminal Code offences and provincial legislation that could be applicable depending on the nature of how the drone is being used.” He suggested referring to the Transport Canada website.
“There definitely would be a difference with taking photos of children and people as compared to vacant land, etc. This is where one would have to investigate the intent of why the photos are being taken and how those photos were going to be used,” MacDougall said.
Transport Canada regulates drones. Their website says, “Privacy laws may not mention drones by name, but these laws do apply to pictures, videos or other information collected by a drone. It’s important for you to be aware of privacy rules when flying.”
“Some violations of a person’s privacy may go beyond privacy laws and may be offences that result in charges. This includes using drones in a way that could be: voyeurism, mischief, creating a nuisance, violations of provincial or municipal laws.” The website also sets out privacy guidelines for commercial drone operators.
We reached out to the RM for comment but haven’t had a response.
- Jenifer Argue, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Note: These reports may be abridged for content