Concerns about landslides were reignited last month after a mudslide swept through a home in Lions Bay, killing two people.
The provincial NDP government says it will review recommendations from a 15-year-old coroner’s investigation that were meant to address the risk of landslides to B.C. communities.
Recommended Videos
Other recommendations included that the province develop a comprehensive landslide hazard management strategy focused on prevention and risk mitigation, consider establishing a legislated standard for how landslide assessments should be conducted, and co-ordinate the development of provincial guidelines to assist local governments in recognizing when a risk assessment should be carried out.
“We can’t comment on why the former (B.C. Liberal) government didn’t follow through on the coroner’s recommendations nearly 20 years ago. Our government is reviewing the 2008 recommendations,” B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship officials said in an email sent from public affairs officer Akriti Tyagi.
The internal review will determine if any of the coroner recommendations “are feasible and beneficial in terms of increasing public safety,” said the written statement.
Ministry officials did not respond to a question on how long the review would take. Provincial officials said no one was available for an interview.
The coroner recommendations were delivered 16 years ago after an examination of the death of 43-year-old Eliza Wing Mun Kuttner in a landslide on Jan. 19, 2005 that carried a District of North Vancouver home down a steep slope at 3:30 a.m.
The Sea to Sky Highway corridor is an area of known risk for landslides, debris flows and rockfalls. Two people were killed in a slide in Lions Bay in 1983 and another nine people were killed in a nearby slide in 1981 that wiped out a bridge.
Creating landslide risk tolerance levels, also called landslide safety levels, was a key recommendation by the coroner in 2008, and would help communities and experts determine whether, for example, it is safe to build along steep slope areas or where there are creeks, and whether changes are needed to protect existing homes.
The 2008 coroner recommendations also called for the province to develop and administer standardized training and education for local governments and their staff in identification of landslide hazard risks and interpretation of risk assessments prepared by qualified professionals, develop an internet-based databank of landslide hazard information and create an inter-ministry technical working group to oversee implementation of the recommendations.