Hearing order OH - 001 – 2014 Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC Written submission Yarrow Ecovillage May 27, 2015 Table of Contents I. Introduction and overview ............................................................................. 3 1.1 Brief history of the Yarrow Ecovillage ................................................................ 3 1.2 Components of the Ecovillage (interrelationships) ......................................... 4 II. NEB Issues #6, #7, #11, #12 .......................................................................... 5 2.1 General route and land requirements (issue #6) ............................................... 5 2.1.1 Severe risk and threat to organic certification ................................................. 6 2.1.2 Disruption of critical waste water treatment system ........................................ 7 2.1.3 Disruption of irrigation system ......................................................................... 7 2.1.4 Disruption of hothouse operations .................................................................. 7 2. 2 Suitability of the design of the proposed project (issue #7) ........................... 9 2.3 Contingency planning for spills, accidents or malfunctions during construction and operation of the project (issue #11) ............................................ 9 2.4 Safety and security during construction of the proposed project and operation of the project, including emergency response planning and third- party damage prevention. (issue #12) ...................................................................... 9 2.4.1 Trans Mountain has not provided adequate emergency services ................. 10 2.4.2 Local First responders not adequately qualified ............................................ 10 III. NEB Issues #3, #4, #10 ............................................................................... 12 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 12 3.2 Field and soil disturbance ................................................................................. 12 3.3 Biodiversity and pest control ........................................................................... 14 3.4 Organic Certification, Branding, and Marketing ............................................. 15 3.4.1 Organic Certification ....................................................................................... 15 3.4.2 Branding and Marketing ................................................................................. 16 3.5 Other concerns .................................................................................................. 18 3.5.1 Access ........................................................................................................... 18 3.5.2 Contamination during construction ................................................................. 18 3.5.3 Spills ............................................................................................................... 18 3.6 The specific values and importance of the Ecovillage site to farmers ........ 18 3.6.1 Access and Stability ....................................................................................... 19 3.6.2 Permaculture .................................................................................................. 20 3.7 Amenity landscape values ................................................................................ 21 3.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 24 3.9 Works Cited ........................................................................................................ 24 IV. Appendices ................................................................................................. 29 4.1 Yarrow EcoVillage Vision, Principles and Strategies ..................................... 29 4.2 Map of South Field ............................................................................................. 33 4.3 Yarrow Ecovillage Information Request 2014-05-12 ....................................... 34 4.4 Selected sections for reference from CAN/CGSB-32.310-2006, Organic Production Systems General Principles and Management Standards ............... 36 4.5 Biographies of Researchers .............................................................................. 39 Hearing order OH - 001 – 2014 Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC Written submission Yarrow Ecovillage May 27, 2015 I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 1.1 Brief history of the Yarrow Ecovillage In 2002 a group of people purchased a twenty-five acre (ten hectare) property in Yarrow, a small rural edge community within the boundaries of Chilliwack, B.C. The intent of the founding group was to create a sustainable community. In August, 2002 the group incorporated as the Yarrow Ecovillage Society (YES) Cooperative. At a workshop that Fall, the members of the cooperative established their “Vision, Principles and Strategies,” to guide sustainable development. The group also initiated a consultation process with the local community and the City of Chilliwack to develop and refine their plans. In 2003 members of the cooperative started an organic farm, which was granted “third year transitional organic” status. The farm was granted full organic status in 2004. In July, 2004 a small parcel at the front (north) of the property was rezoned “Commercial (C2) to enable mixed use (commercial/residential) development. In 2006 the remainder of the five acres outside the Agricultural Land Reserve was rezoned from “Rural Residential” to “Ecovillage” (EV) zoning. The zone description permitted up to 50 residences, cottage industries, and retail businesses on the five-acre parcel. The mayor announced that this was the first such zoning in Canada. In 2008 a construction loan was granted by Vancity Capital Corporation and construction began on two duplexes using green building methods. A third duplex and two domes were added as part of that phase. In 2010 Charles Durrett, an internationally-renown cohousing consultant, was hired to complete the first cohousing development. That year, the Cooperative approved subdivision of the property into three entities: The twenty acre organic farm, a strata-titled cohousing development on 2.3 acres and a future mixed use development including businesses, a second cohousing community and a learning centre on 1.7 acres. Groundswell Cohousing, consisting of thirty-three strata-titled units, was completed in 2014. Hearing order OH - 001 – 2014 Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC: Written submission - Yarrow Ecovillage The vision of the Yarrow Ecovillage from 2002 has, at its core, supporting the growth of sustainable community where people can live and work and be relatively self-sufficient into the foreseeable future. The vision is as follows: “A community living and working in harmony with neighbours and nature.”1 The Ecovillage community has grown to nearly one hundred people in 2014 with the completion of eighteen cohousing units, added to the previously-built fifteen units. The ecovillage community is a response to threats of peri-urbanization2 to rural edge communities. It is a positive example of medium density housing clustered so as to retain needed agricultural land. The City of Chilliwack gave Canada’s first designated “ecovillage zoning” to the Yarrow Ecovillage, recognizing the importance of respectful land use, and unique sustainable waste water treatment. Research has shown that intentional communities are an important aspect of sustainable development diffusion. As Dale, Ling and Newman (2010) conclude in their study of thirty-five communities formed with sustainable development goals: “Community vitality both provides the needed resilience to weather social, economic, and environmental change, and also provides a site for innovation where problems can be addressed iteratively with a process- based approach through the active engagement of diverse social actors. Community vitality, however, has been badly damaged in the industrial world by the suburbanization of the second half of the twentieth century.3 1.2 Components of the Ecovillage (interrelationships) Two key components of the Ecovillage, which are put at risk by the proposed expansion, are the organic farms, which form the backbone of the Ecovillage, and the people who live in close proximity to the proposed bitumin-carrying pipeline, including thirty-five children. The Ecovillage is comprised of many young families who have made their homes at this location with the intention of creating a healthy cooperative environment for raising their young children. Industrial disruption in the form of the proposed pipeline expansion not only threatens the livelihood of many farmers, it also negatively affects all the 1 Yarrow Ecovillage. “Vision, Principles and Strategies,” (see Section 4.1). 2 Peri-urbanisation relates to those processes of dispersive urban growth that creates hybrid landscapes of fragmented urban and rural characteristics.—Wikipedia 3 Ann Dale, Chris. Ling and Lenore. Newman (2010). “Community Vitality: The Role of Community-Level Resilience Adaptation and Innovation in Sustainable Development.” Sustainability, 2, 228; doi:10.3390/su2010215 http://crcresearch.org/sites/default/files/u641/sustainability-02-00215.pdf 15/05/12 4 Hearing order OH - 001 – 2014 Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC: Written submission - Yarrow Ecovillage residents of the Ecovillage, it is further inimical to