They were warned this might happen.
FortisBC has filed a legal petition with the BC Supreme Court over the District of Squamish’s denial of a development permit to allow the company to do a route investigation for the company’s proposed pipeline expansion.
The expansion would feed the proposed Woodfibre LNG plant planned for Squamish.
The legal papers were filed March 10, according to Trevor Boudreau, spokesperson for FortisBC.
“The crux of it is we are asking them to review the decision by the district,” Boudreau told The Squamish Chief.
“Our position is the same as it has been since the day we presented to council, that we have complied with all the application requirements and so the district ought to have issued the permit.”
Squamish council voted down FortisBC’s development permit application on January 20.
At council, prior to the vote, Rod MacLeod, the district’s director of engineering said that the proponant had complied with everything needed for the development permit.
Councillors Doug Race, Jason Blackman-Wulff and Susan Chapelle voted for granting the permit.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman and Councillors Peter Kent, Karen Elliott and Ted Prior voted against it.
Councillor Race said, at the time, he was concerned about the legal ramifications of the council’s decision. “It remains to be seen, I think, if tonight’s decision will have any impact. Just leave it at that,” he said after the vote was tallied.
Boudreau said that if the court agrees with FortisBC’s position, that it complied with all the application requirements and that the district ought to have issued the permit, then the court does have power to direct the district to provide the permit.
Both sides will now wait for a hearing date to be set.
“We want to continue working with the District of Squamish to find a path forward,” said Boudreau.
“It is important for people to understand that we are a regulated utility in the province and we have a duty to investigate service connections for customers who have contacted us, and Woodfibre LNG has contacted us as a potential customer looking for gas service so we need to do our due diligence to bring this forward,” he said. “This is not any comment on, should the project go forward, this is simple investigative work that we would do and do all of the time all over the province to make sure we can properly evaluate a route option.”
The district and the mayor did not comment on the legal action when contacted by The Squamish Chief.
“As the matter is now before the court, the District of Squamish is not in a position to comment,” read an email from a district spokesperson.
Please note that this story has been corrected since its original posting.
