Extensive damage caused to North Shore oyster lease after trees cut from coastline
CBC
The destruction of a 100-year-old oyster lease on the Island's North Shore has left an Island oyster fisherman heartbroken.
Robbie Moore, owner of MacMillan Point Oyster Farm in West Cove Head, says the damage off MacMillan Point Road occurred last year. He said it happened after an out-of-province landowner built a new home near his oyster lease and cut down all of the trees along the shoreline.
The landowner was fined, but the fisherman has been left with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
"I was very angry. People don't realize what it takes to grow oysters. It's taken me five to eight years to harvest a crop," Moore said in an interview with CBC News.
"I didn't lose one year's worth of crops, I lost eight years' worth of crops of all stages and sizes — you know, everything from baby oysters to jumbos. I was heartbroken. You go through all that emotional stuff and I still get emotional about it today, right?"
Moore captured the damage with photos and video. It was extensive.
Water was running through places where it had never been before, causing soil to spill into the water.
The grower said it has ruined his oyster beds.
The homeowner who caused the damage was fined $3,000 — the maximum allowed under current regulations.
But that is about to change.
In the legislature on Thursday, Environment Minister Steven Myers said he is going to significantly increase the fine to a maximum of $50,000.
He said contractors involved in damaging watercourses will lose the special licence that let's them work in buffer zones.
The changes are expected to come into effect before the start of this construction season.
Myers used the word "sickening" to describe the mudslide that spilled into the water off Moore's oyster lease.
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