Dexter fined $30k for damaging habitat on Frog Island Mahone Bay

Dexter fined $30k for damaging habitatBy BEVERLEY WARE South Shore BureauFri. Dec 7 - 5:51 AM
BRIDGEWATER — Dexter Construction has been fined $30,000 — which includes an order to donate $20,000 to two water conservation groups — after it damaged fish habitat while building a luxury home on an island in Mahone Bay.
The fine was on top of the more than $300,000 the Bedford company spent fixing the damage it caused to the 5,500-square-metre area off Frog Island.
Judge Anne Crawford said in Bridgewater provincial court that she has no idea who owns the "luxurious-looking home" but said that person should have known better than to hire a company that destroyed "the very habitat apparently the home was built for the person to enjoy."
Dexter Construction used an excavator below the mean water mark to scrape and pull rocks from the intertidal zone and put them above the mean water mark.
Fisheries and Natural Resources officials visited the site April 25 and found a lot of silt on the southwest side of the island. Habitat biologist Thomas Wheadon wrote a report presented in court that said "habitat in this intertidal zone had been severely damaged as a result of the scraping."
"The result was the complete alteration of the natural and productive intertidal zone," Mr. Wheadon said.
The area had offered stable, diverse and valuable fish habitat, he said.
The area is a rich spawning and feeding ground and a sheltered area for lobster, mackerel, groundfish, scallops and mussels, he said.
Defence lawyer Robert Grant said Dexter Construction was sorry for what it did, stopped work immediately, hired its own specialist and worked with the government to remediate the area. The plan cost over $380,000, he said, and worked.
He said the company was scraping the rocks up because it was trying to stop erosion on the island that had been causing sediment problems. But Judge Crawford said based on the pictures she saw, "the whole impetus appears to be a rather luxurious-looking home situate on a higher portion of the island."
The company pleaded guilty to altering a fish habitat and depositing a harmful material in the water and was fined $10,000. Judge Crawford also ordered it to donate $10,000 to the LaHave River Salmon Association and $10,000 to the Bluenose Coastal Action Foundation.
Timothy Hugh Potter of Bedford, Dexter’s supervisor on the site, was also charged, and he pleaded guilty to violating the provincial Beaches Act by moving sand, gravel or stone without the province’s consent. He was fined $2,000.
( bware@herald.ca)

Dexter Fined , Frog Island Beach Restored

Frog Island destruction by Dexter construction of Chester.

Strum Island in it's Natural Beauty

Developer says he is saving, not sacrificing, Strum Island
Robert Hirtle
MAHONE BAY - The president of Strum Island Development says he has no intention of destroying the island, but is instead, trying to save it.
Fred Kern was responding to accusations made recently by Gord Tate, owner of Mahone Bay Kayaks, who said the islands in the bay are being threatened by "thoughtless development."
Mr. Tate has circulated a petition which states that the integrity of the islands "must supersede whimsy, ego and greed."
He said the development of Strum, although within the realms of the law, "is a portrait of the islands overall, and the way it's going to go."
Mr. Kern, whose company purchased the island two years ago, said the work being carried on at Strum is not detrimental, but is necessary to stop the island from washing away.
"I'm a developer, that's true," Mr. Kern said. "But I'm a quality developer. I don't do myself any service by doing what [I'm accused] of doing."
Mr. Kern said that Strum Island has been eroding into the sea at an alarming rate for a number of years.
To stop this, he is constructing a sea wall on the southeast side of the island, which, in conjunction with the three terraces he is building up the bank, should halt the process.

Oct 2,2002 Lighthouse Publishing

Strum Island July,2007

Strum Island March,2007

Westside

Eastside

Westside of Strum Island,April,2006

South head of Strum Island, Appears to be a huge Crock Well being dug. Could it be 50 feet deep?

Mr. Kern said that he has employed a civil engineer as well as an environmental consultant in developing the septic systems which will service the six lots on the island, in order to confirm that they will cause no harm to the environment.
Gerald Hanley, the contractor who will install the systems, said the soil on the island is class C-1, which is the best there is for such a project.
"[With] C-2 you've got to bring imported soil in, or sand," he said.
Mr. Kern said that because the systems will be installed in the centre of the island, it is not possible to "percolate into the ocean" as Mr. Tate had inferred.
He also said the only trees that have been removed from the island are spruce trees which have either blown down or were in danger of being uprooted.

Eastside of Strum after the washout was repaired by Hundreds of tons of boulders from the Mainland.

"The only way you can stop erosion is to take the weight off," he explained. "In the winter time, it rains and freezes, and that whole hillside becomes one solid mass like an avalanche." Lighthouse Publishing Oct2,2002

Eastside of Strum's Island