When the Fox preaches take care of your geese.

The Township of Langley has been receiving a lot of press lately related to the fill-dumping going on in their jurisdiction. Fill-dumping, or “fill farming” as it is now being referred to by Mayor Rick Green, is a practice by which farmers can bring in truckloads of fill and use it to level their grounds. It is legal as long as it improves the land. However, it is proving to be quite lucrative for Lower Mainland developers and contractors who, during a building boom, see the farms as prime dumping grounds for their fill, see the Province article.

These developers are now buying farms specifically for this purpose as agricultural land is cheaper than other properties.
So they legally apply for fill-dumping permits through the Langley Township claiming land improvement, which cannot legally be turned down by the Township and forwarded to the Agricultural Land Commission, who then approves or denies the application based only on its farm-improvement criteria. Once a permit is issued, it is back in the hands of the Township for enforcement.

The damage is in the trucks wear and tear on the roads, noise and dust for neighbours (or foxes, but Langley has lots of wild animals), not to mention the environmental damage on wells and streams due to fill runoff and damaged farmland.

Councillor Charlie Fox, who coincidentally lives near to a fill-site himself, has been quoted saying:

"We have to make sure land filling is done in the best interests of agriculture, not in the best interests of lining some-one's pockets."
Not that we see a moral hazard problem here at all...
Langley times further reports that at a council meeting last week, Fox “recognized that staff have not always reacted to neighbours’ concerns or upheld the Township’s soil bylaw.”

“We know staff are being questioned for their decisions or lack thereof,” Fox said.

“But to be fair, there is only one person remaining in soils. The main staff member has retired and two soil technologists are to be hired on. One might question whether that staff member was a duly sworn peace officer as prescribed by the governing provincial legislation and thus capable of enforcing the bylaw in question.

But wait, isn’t it the Agricultural Land Commission that has power over approving fill sites, not the Township? Though the Township is required to give a permit for fill but has the power to stop work if the proponent is in contravention of the amount of fill the permit allows, this proves to be more costly than one would first suspect after reading the articles. In order to enforce a $750 fine to these “fill-farmers” the Township has to take it all the way to the B.C. Supreme Court, which would cost them something along the lines of oh say $10,000.

Are we surprised that if it is possible to make a larger profit by “fill-farming” than actual farming, and that this negative externality is not priced properly or enforceable, that people are going ahead and doing it? Even abusing the permits by adding in a few extra truckloads? At $50-$80 per truck load of fill with permits allowing for thousands of truckloads we are taking quite large gross revenue.