The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) says the provincial government’s decision to not proclaim the Coastal Protection Act is irresponsible and leaves Nova Scotia’s coastline “completely unregulated” during a climate emergency.
“It is hugely problematic that they’ve now axed the Coastal Protection Act. What has effectively happened is they have downloaded responsibility onto individuals and municipalities,” the environmental non profit’s director of programs, Marla MacLeod, said in an interview.
“We are in a climate emergency, and in an emergency one needs to act. The first thing we should be doing is preventing new builds in places that are unsafe and that are going to be prone to coastal erosion. Education comes after that. There are a number of other things that do need to happen, but I feel that today’s announcement has set us back over a decade.”
On Monday, Environment and Climate Change Minister Timothy Halman announced the province won’t proclaim Nova Scotia’s long-awaited Coastal Protection Act, passed in 2019 with full support from all parties.
Instead, the government has opted for a new plan. That plan is titled ‘The Future of Nova Scotia’s Coastline: The plan to protect people, homes and nature from climate change along our coast.’
It’s described in a provincial media release as focused on “empowering coastal property owners to make informed decisions, supporting municipal leadership and aligning resources with coastal protection.”
“The Coastal Protection Act will not be proclaimed. What you have today is coastal action. As of 10am today, Nova Scotians can access the online tool map and access navigators,” Halman told reporters on Monday morning. “We have a climate action plan that will be implemented over the months and years ahead.”
New tools
The online tool map Halman referred to is known as the coastal hazard map. Developed in-house by GeoNova, it is intended to show property owners how much sea level rise is projected by 2100. It can be searched by civic address or PID number.
Within the next few months, it will be updated to show sea level rise by 2050.
A postcard consultation campaign was held last fall to contact property owners for their input on how to plan and adapt development along Nova Scotia’s coastline in response to climate change. On Monday Halman said that particular round of public consultation resulted in 1,070 responses, although he didn’t say what percentage supported implementing the Coastal Protection Act.
Halman also announced that a new navigator service will help coastal property owners “understand potential risks and hazards on their property and what they can do to mitigate them.” Four navigators were hired to assist the province’s estimated 40,000 coastal property owners.
The province said about 13.1% of Nova Scotia’s coastline is now protected from development inside provincial parks, wilderness areas, and lands owned and managed by conservation land trusts and Mi’kmaw organizations.
‘Municipalities are best equipped’
Municipalities will create zoning bylaws to determine what can be built along the province’s coastline, described by Halman as “leveraging action-oriented municipal leadership.”
Halman also discussed providing municipalities with new tools to make their decisions, although some tools aren’t yet available.
While the plan promises flood zone maps for municipalities, only one third of the maps are ready. Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing John Lohr said the remaining flood zone maps are expected by 2027.
Aerial photography showing coastal erosion has yet to take place. Despite many municipalities pleading for action, a sample zoning bylaw the province is promising to provide to municipalities also isn’t ready.
In the province’s media release, Lohr said municipalities are “best equipped to take a holistic approach to planning, designing and building coastal communities so that they are resilient to climate change.”
They have strong processes and systems to ensure community development and building is done in a way that is sustainable and safe. We will continue to support local municipal leadership and action by investing in more flood-line maps for them to use in their zoning and planning work, through programs like the Sustainable Communities Challenge Fund and the Community Climate Capacity Program, by conducting a provincewide erosion risk assessment, and more.
15 actions
The new coastal protection action plan released by the provincial government has 15 actions that property owners, municipalities, and the province can undertake “to make coastal homes, communities and natural areas safer.”
They range from public education and a province wide erosion risk assessment to more supports for flood planning and “creating information municipalities can use.”
As reported here in November, a dozen Nova Scotia municipalities joined the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) to demand the province implement Coastal Protection Act (CPA) regulations.
In a joint letter, they called on the province to immediately release and implement the regulations “before any more reckless development puts our communities and ecosystems further at risk.”
The letter said because we’re in a climate emergency, the delay was “irresponsible and unacceptable.”
“A vast majority of Nova Scotia’s coast has no significant development regulation,” the letter said. “The province’s continued delay of the regulations is an unfair offloading of labour and costs onto Municipalities, leaving them to either pass their own bylaws, or continue to suffer degradation of our coastal communities and environment.”
‘Height of irresponsibility’
MacLeod said her worst fears were realized with Monday’s announcement, adding that she and her EAC colleagues were left “frustrated and appalled.”
“I just think this is the height of irresponsibility. The amount of work that has been thrown away today is just unreal,” MacLeod said.
There are no provincial regulations or rules preventing people from building near the coast. Measures being considered by the province include “re-evaluating the cap on disaster relief” for people or businesses that continue to build in flooded areas.
The current cap is $200,000, and Nova Scotia is waiting on new federal guidelines coming into effect this spring. Another action cited in the newly released climate plan is tying provincial funding to municipalities for future infrastructure to how well the municipality “considers coastal hazard information.”
“My concern is that we don’t have any regulations. We have a completely unregulated coastline. What is happening is we have suggestions of where one can build instead of actual rules. It’s not a playing field for individuals,” MacLeod said.
“If one person is building in a place that’s unsafe, it impacts all of us because how they treat their coastline impacts their neighbours. The costs associated with this, be they insurance-related or disaster relief-related, are passed on to everybody. We are all in this together. It’s not a place where it’s up to the individual. This is a collective problem.”
‘Who are they listening to?’
MacLeod isn’t convinced the new plan is an upgrade. She said while some of the tools existed before, it is ideal to have them all in one place because she agrees it’s important for Nova Scotians to be informed. But she said municipalities wouldn’t need guidance on land use bylaws if the Coastal Protection Act had been implemented,
“Five years ago now, when the act (was passed), many municipalities were moving ahead with things and that all stopped because there were supposed to be overarching regulations,” she said. “So, they’ve in fact slowed everything down.”
Despite the disappointment, MacLeod said the EAC hasn’t given up their fight to protect the province’s coasts.
“The province got over a thousand letters, the vast majority of which expressed support for the Coastal Protection Act. They’re effectively ignoring those,” MacLeod said.
“This government styled itself in their election promises that ‘We’re all about listening to the people.’ Well, what are they doing now? They’re not listening to the thousands of letters they got. They’re not listening to municipalities. So who are they listening to?”
‘Abandoning Nova Scotians and abandoning municipalities’
In an emailed statement Monday, the New Democratic Party’s spokesperson on environment and climate change said the provincial government is “abandoning Nova Scotians and they’re abandoning municipalities.”
“With today’s announcement, we are left with no coordinated plan on how we’re going to protect our coastline. It’s clear Minister Halman and Premier (Tim) Houston are listening to a select group of people who are opposed to this law,” Lisa Lachance said.
“I’ve received hundreds of e-mails from people asking for the proclamation of the Coastal Protection Act and the government has walked away from that today. The majority of people want to protect their community and work collectively to have a coastline that’s being protected.”
As a former minister, Liberal party environment and climate change critic Iain Rankin was heavily involved with the Coastal Protection Act. In an emailed statement, Rankin said Tim Houston’s government has abandoned a “key piece” of environmental legislation that was passed with all-party support in 2019.
“This government dragged out consultation for two years and has now opted for coastal education, not coastal protection,” Rankin wrote. “With serious weather events hitting our province with more frequency and severity, climate change must be taken more seriously than simply offering advice to people.”
With files from Jennifer Henderson
This is not just about allowing individuals to do as they please with their own money: it’s about action Now to prevent total destruction of our coastline as climate change causes more and more damage from storms and hurricanes. Who will prevent the Isthmus of Chignecto from becoming the Straight of Chignecto?
When I moved to Nova Scotia over a decade ago, I did not need an app to access the provincial climate change maps for Halifax. Even at that time, rising waters and subsidence meant that the areas below Barrington would be lost to climate change. These maps did not address what areas would suffer from storm surges caused by an ever unpredictable climate. HRM seems to be ignoring these maps and continues to permit ( and encourages) residential development in areas that are going to be lost to climate change. We need regulations to guide and hold accountable municipalities, developers and landowners for their use of coastal areas, not some stupid app that tells us what we already know. What will HRM do when a climate change induced storm surge destroys our sewage treatment plant or shorts out the electrical service for all those new high-rise buildings like the Queen’s Marque or those being developed as part of the Cogswell development. Darned hard to evacuate folks from upper floors without elevators and the like…And imagine the clean up of all the toxic chemicals leaching into the water from restaurants and other commercial establishments on the waterfront! Superstorm Sandy in fact did short out electrical services in lots of apartment buildings in Manhattan, and not just those on the waterfront because the storm surge travelled through sewers, tunnels and holes in the rocks. Before Superstorm Sandy, NYC ignored the warnings and failed to adopt stringent regulations with respect to coastal development. After Sandy, things started to change. I guess our governmental officials think that Nova Scotia is exempt from climate change and our coasts don’t need protection. What a bunch of hooey! Individual action alone is insufficient to address climate change. The government needs to step up and regulate to ensure that Nova Scotia’s coasts are protected and preserved not just for coastal landowners, but for the rest of us who will suffer if we lose electricity, our drinking water is tainted or we need to pay for costly cleanups caused by inadequate actions by coastal landowners.
Hm…the first statement you see when you click onto the “Coastal Hazard Map” is a disclaimer: “The Province of Nova Scotia makes no representations, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the information, maps, and other data, including PID numbers or property boundaries, and coastal flood hazards which are displayed in this map application.” So they are building a process that has sand as its first building step? And PC’s pride themselves in being good business people? Who would follow such a recommendation in the private sector? Why do so with the public sector- that is, what is for everyone? Not good stewardship, to say the very least.
Why not proclaim the bill as was passed. Then work at adding things to it or submitting another bill for debate and then voting in the legislature? Doing nothing is not the answer.
The act was proclaimed. But it’s dependent on the government creating a regulatory framework for it, and this government refuses to do so, so the act is essentially meaningless, ie. dead.
The province is leaving coastal development oversight to the municipalities but has previously passed legislation allowing itself to override municipal development decisions.
The bill never made sense. It didn’t protect the coast, it just limited what waterfront owners can do on their own land with their own money at their own risk. I wonder how many advocates don’t even own waterfront property but want to tell others what they can do on their own land. It’s Nova Scotia, people love to live by the water. Let them.
No problem with land owners doing their own thing with their own money. As long as their actions don’t result in higher insurance rates for everyone and they don’t cry for the government to bail them out when the next tidal surge hits them. How likely is that?
What people do on their own coastal land impacts everyone, from causing erosion of adjacent properties, to leaching sediments or too much phosphorous and other chemicals into the water and disrupting ecosystems, to destroying our natural coastal storm barriers and thus increasing flooding and other destructive storm impacts inshore.
I live by the water and was in favour of costal protection. I have seen the damage neighbouring owners can do when they put in a Breakwater, and no one else does. Essentially what now May happen is neighbour suing neighbour for the damage done to their land by building, these types of protections, none of which work, and most of which erode neighbouring properties. I don’t think any landowners have tried this avenue of compensation yet, but I could see such an argument, succeeding, perhaps on the basis of trespass. Sometimes people need to be told that they just cannot build where they want to.