B.C. communities are stuck with the job of assessing and mitigating geo-hazards, but can’t afford it
Norma Rodgers, a longtime resident of Lions Bay, was just about to park her car on Crystal Falls Road on the morning of Dec. 14 for her daily walk when she heard a roaring and cracking sound.
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She couldn’t see anything through her windshield on the foggy, rainy and windy day. But when she stepped out of her car she saw that part of the mountainside was gone above the Sea to Sky Highway — and that mud and trees were sliding down the slope.
Her vehicle’s clock said it was 10:05 in the morning.
Ten minutes later the movement on the slope had stopped, said Rodgers.
“For the whole 15, 20 minutes I was there, it was a total sense of unreality,” recounted Rodgers.
The deadly debris flow in Lions Bay has once again brought into focus that B.C., with its many mountains and steep valley slopes, is at risk of so-called geo-hazards that also include open-slope landslides and rockfalls.
It has also opened up questions on whether risks are known and properly assessed, and if risks are identified and need to be mitigated, who is responsible and who should pay, a key issue for local governments, especially those with small tax bases.
And this comes with a warning from scientists that climate change, which is forecast to bring more frequent severe weather, will trigger more landslides and debris flows.
I do think the province has a role to play. It’s their responsibility.
John Clague
Environment Canada records show there were wind gusts up to 80 km/hr in the Lions Bay area on the day of the slide, says meteorologist Derek Lee. And B.C. Hydro officials say crews were sent out about 90 minutes before the slide because of a tree making contact with wires and a broken power pole on a road adjacent to Battani Creek.
John Clague, a professor emeritus of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University, says the identification of landslide risks and giving priority to mitigation is more important than ever given the changing climate.
This work should be driven by a higher level of government, he says, particularly if it includes assessing existing homes and infrastructure built when risks were less well understood.
Clague pointed to the coroner’s investigation into a 2005 deadly slide in the District of North Vancouver that recommended establishing provincial landslide risk tolerance levels for existing homes and future developments, and creating a comprehensive landslide hazard management strategy focused on prevention and risk mitigation.
“I worry about individual municipalities that really don’t have the resources to even take on a geotechnical engineer to do that type of analysis,” said Clague, a leading authority on natural hazards and editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Natural Hazards.
“I do think the province has a role to play,” he said. “It’s their responsibility.”
A history of deadly slides
The risks of landslides and debris flows reach well beyond Lions Bay.
Coquitlam city officials say they conduct annual ravine inspections to assess slope stability and have regulations that require slope-risk assessments for new developments.
In a written response, city spokeswoman Kathleen Vincent said the city is reviewing the geological and hydrological characteristics that contributed to the fatal slide. “The intent is to enhance our understanding of slope safety and improve practices,” she said.
The Union of B.C. Municipalities, which represents local governments, has said if that is going to happen they need long-term, secure funding to help tackle natural hazards that also include floods and wildfires, which are also being exacerbated by climate change. So far, the B.C. government has not agreed to long-term funding.
In other communities, like Lions Bay, where steep slopes, creeks and ravines pose a risk of landslides and debris flows, local government officials say they can’t mitigate risk on their own.
That position was almost universal across more than a dozen communities and regional districts surveyed by Postmedia.
Many have measures to address landslide and debris flow risks.
Maple Ridge has established a “natural feature” building development permit area to reduce the potential for slope instability and erosion. It requires site-specific assessments, engineered solutions, and environmental protection measures.
But Steve Faltas, the city’s director of engineering, says: “While the city is committed to proactive risk assessment and mitigation efforts, the scale and cost of required improvements far exceed available municipal resources.”
Still, the city did not approve the project until it had signed a 20-year agreement with the province to help cover costs of cleaning of debris out of the dam.
Said city spokeswoman Rachel Boguski: “Assistance from senior levels of government are critical to ease the tax burden on residents and allow the district to address risk in a timely manner.”
What do you do? Evacuate the entire community?
Ross Blackwell
In much larger Vancouver, where the city is in the process of hiring a consultant to conduct a communitywide slope hazard study to be completed in 2026, officials say cost is also an issue.
“Risk assessment work is complex. It requires data, investment and policy work from all levels of government to address these hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks,” noted Vancouver spokeswoman Elayne Sun.
In tiny Lions Bay, which has a population of 1,300, local officials say they don’t have the money for any significant mitigation measures because of the small tax base. The same constraint applies to cleanup and safety measures for the recent debris flow.
Ross Blackwell, the village’s chief administrative officer, questioned how small communities that do not have deep pockets can afford to do substantial work. “What do you do? Evacuate the entire community? Say, ‘Sorry, you can’t live here anymore.’ It’s a big question. And hopefully the province takes a lead hand in facilitating that discussion,” said Blackwell.
Anmore, with a population of 2,500, also has concerns that climate change will exacerbate steep slope and slide risks and costs. The Metro Vancouver community has done some slope mapping, but no recent communitywide geo-hazard assessment or mapping.
“As a small community, we would welcome financial assistance, such as grants, from higher levels of government to undertake these initiatives,” said Karla Shannon, the village’s communications coordinator.
Other smaller communities that don’t govern themselves fall under the jurisdiction of regional districts.
In Furry Creek, just north of Lions Bay along the Sea to Sky Highway, the Squamish Lillooet Regional District has established development regulations in hazard areas.
“In general, regional districts do not have the means or the mandate to mitigate geohazards that originate on provincially managed land as we do not carry the tax base within any potential service area to pay for this,” the district said in a statement.
District officials note they received funding help from the federal government for a recent regional districtwide geohazard risk assessment report.
Those include the District of North Vancouver and the Fraser Valley Regional District.
In a presentation to Lions Bay council in 2022, BGC Engineering consultant Matthias Jakob noted that B.C. is well behind countries like Switzerland, Hong Kong and Japan in setting these standards. “Unlike in other places, British Columbia is still in their infancy,” said Jakob, who had been an adjunct professor at the University of B.C. and one of Canada’s foremost specialists in steep creek hazard and risk assessments before he died in 2022.
The B.C. government has said very little about the Lions Bay slide or whether any risk mitigation will be needed or whether they would help.
In a written response to Postmedia’s questions, the province says it is taking a “holistic and cross-government” approach on capital projects for landslide risk in B.C.
Officials pointed to the agreement with the District of Squamish to help with cleanup costs if its new $89 million structure is hit by an extraordinary high debris flow.
“The province’s indemnity is a unique and time-limited step being taken in the interest of public safety — to help protect people and property,” the B.C. Water, Land and Natural Resource Ministry said in an email sent by public affairs officer Akriti Tyagi.
Communities need help
Four decades ago, following a debris flow that hit a different part of Lions Bay and killed two young men, ages 18 and 19, the B.C. government stepped in to reduce the debris flow risk. The province built catchment basins on Harvey and Magnesia creeks and a concrete channel along Alberta Creek.
The contracts for the work announced by the B.C. government totalled $7.8 million, according to articles in The Vancouver Sun in 1984.
In today’s dollars, that would be more than $20 million.
The work in the 1980s did not include any mitigations on tiny Battani Creek.
That report also recommended the village get an expert to estimate debris flows on several creeks and run risk scenarios using that new information, and also have an expert estimate the frequency and magnitude of open-slope landslides affecting Lions Bay using computer modelling.
Rodgers, the longtime Lions Bay resident, said that slide and debris risks are not something that are top of mind, but they are in the back of her mind.
She said, in fact, the bigger concern recently has been the risk of wildfire.
She noted that access to mountain hiking trails had been shut down last summer in the community over those wildfire concerns.
But Rodgers does give thought to the “well-loved” Enns, who died, and to the mud, rocks and trees that swept over the Sea to Sky Highway, a busy route for commuters and hikers and skiers. It took nearly a day to be reopened.
Rodgers believes it’s a miracle nobody was killed on the highway that morning.
One thing Rodgers is clear on is that she believes the province needs to take leadership and help communities confront the increasing risk of slides and debris flows from climate change.
She points out that the recent deadly slide in Lions Bay originated on provincial land outside the boundaries off the village, and others risks are likely to originate on provincial land as well.
Observed Rodgers: “What are we supposed to do, put a huge fence around the village?”