The Plans to Reopen Brown's Pit Must Stop Now!

Karren Winther, another neighbour lists her reasons for opposing the reopening of Brown's Pit, which lies over the Hopington Aquifer.

Located at 240th street and 68th avenue in Langley
Beneath it lies the already overpumped and fragile Hopington Aquifer which supplies drinking water to well over 3000 homes – studies completed as early as last year which this government participated in classify it as one of the three most fragile aquifers in the province
This ex gravel pit was mined up until, and then closed in 1963 – 11 years later the area developed - wells were drilled and homes built. More recently legislation to prevent open pit gravel mining in the municipality was put into place.
Now, 46 years later this B.C. government wants to reopen this mine, enlarge it and extract gravel from this sensitive area – literally in our backyard
We were here first – this is not acceptable!!!
At risk is the quality and quantity of drinking water to thousands of people
We know gravel pits are bad (as quoted from a Fraser Health employee)
Case studies show that the result of ground vibrations from extracting and filling results in increased levels of arsenic in drinking water and phospherus levels in fish bearing creeks (the Salmon River and Couglan Creek surround this area)
Furthermore the water table is dropping at an alarming rate now – and plans to extract over one million (1,000,000) cubic metres of gravel (the largest pit Langley has ever had application for!!) will result in a hole 400 feet by 700 feet by 50 to 100 feet deep.
There are no other options for water here - the Township of Langley has assured us there is no hope of having city/municipal water in this area for at least 10 – 15 years.
There are many other sources for gravel – Heidleberg, Mainland Sand and Gravel, Valley Sand & Gravel and Lafarge to mention only a few. Gravel can be barged down the river directly from the Sumas pit at a fraction (1/20th) of the cost as mining and transporting it by truck.

Contact Number 604-530-6106 or
www.hopingtonaquifer