Despite widely differing pleas presented by local residents at White Rock council’s July 24 meeting, council took no new action on the issue of managing trees and vegetation on ‘the hump.’
The sloping hillside section of Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway land, south of Marine Drive, forms a natural division between East Beach and West Beach – but has also divided residents on how it should be maintained.
Some believe that trees and vegetation on the hump should be trimmed to maximize views of the water and the city’s iconic pier. Others believe that over-clearing of the hump poses a threat to hillside stability and increases the likelihood of disastrous landslides impacting the busy waterfront rail route.
“Every council is challenged with the hump – the infamous hump,” Coun. David Chesney commented, after council heard presentations on both sides of the issue. “So we might as well start all over again.”
His motion that staff produce a further report on the “stability and vegetation of the hump” was not passed, however, with some councillors, including Coun. Christopher Trevelyan, pointing out that the previous council had already received a full report on the issue – a point with which Chesney readily agreed.
“It’s been looked at many times,” he said.
READ ALSO: White Rock to take another look at trimming Marine Drive’s ‘hump’
City operations manager Jim Gordon confirmed to council that the latest trimming of vegetation and cutting of some trees in the hump area came to a halt a couple of weeks ago, after the city exhausted the $10,000 budgeted for it this year.
A delegation of residents attending the meeting – Dave Sharpe, Kerry Wray, Shelley Mare and Jan Wild – were asking that trimming of the hump continue, claiming that views are important to both residents and visitors – and that failing to manage the vegetation poses a safety issue.
But the meeting was also attended by two members of SmartRail, a community organization concerned with rail safety, who spoke on the potential impact on the slope stability of the hump from what they worry will be excessive cutting of trees and vegetation.
Among their fears are a scenario of a landslide hitting a train carrying hazardous fuels or chemicals, which they claim could cause a disaster in White Rock of the order of the derailment and explosion of a train carrying crude oil that devastated downtown Lac-Megantic, Que. in 2013.
Backgrounding both sides of the issue is the contentious ‘clearcut’ of the hump the city commissioned in 2015.
READ ALSO: Bluff clear-cut catches many off guard
It was a move characterized at the time as necessary for maintaining the slope, but which some council critics have claimed was done to improve the views, and market values, of homes on the north side of Marine Drive.
City communications manager Amanda Silvers told Peace Arch News that work on the hump this year was mainly removal of blackberry bushes and other invasive species, plus regenerative tree shoots, from selected areas.
She said the work was done on BNSF property with “full approval of the railway” – and follows geotechnical and arborist report recommendations presented to Council over the past four years “for the purpose of restoring ocean views without comprising slope stability.”
She noted that, in keeping with the direction of the previous council in October of 2022, maintenance has “cleared the sidewalk for pedestrian access and restored some view corridors for tourists, pedestrians, and motorists.”
She acknowledged, however, that work was not nearly as extensive as that requested by nearby residents.
That was evident from Sharpe’s remarks to council.
“We’re asking council to fund the full hump vegetation management plan, which was passed by the previous council in 2022,” he said.
“This plan includes trimming of vegetation, including tall tree shoots, to the level of a pedestrian, at the fence line, all along the sidewalk on Marine Drive,” he added.
Sharpe said there are “major risks involved” in not managing the vegetation on the hump.
“(There is) a significant safety risk in people climbing the railings to get a view of the water and the pier,” he said. “Unfortunately you can’t see it from the sidewalk.”
He also showed council a photo taken during the city’s recent Canada Day fireworks display.
“Hundreds of people (were) searching for a view. This blocked traffic and caused potential risk, with people and cars taking up the same space. If the vegetation was trimmed, there would be a view from along the sidewalk.”
Sharpe said that, with vegetation becoming overgrown each year, there is an increased fire risk as well. “It seems prudent to minimize the potential risk and the possible liability of a fire.”
A brief video clip that Sharpe showed council also illustrated the lack of visibility of the water from the sidewalk on the hump. “Where is our city by the sea?” he asked.
“We are all aware of a clearcut that happened in 2015,” Sharpe said. “That seemed to generate a resistance to properly maintaining the hump vegetation…to be clear, we are not asking for, nor do we want or support a clearcut.”
Sharpe cited city-funded engineering and arborists’ reports in averring that tall shoots from stumps of trees such as maples can actually imperil slope stability.
“New tree shoots do not have a stable root-plate to sustain them and will likely break as they grow,” he said. “They grow off the root of the stump and have no root systems of their own. Trees that grow too tall in this situation may be uprooted by strong winds.”
Sharpe said there has been a concern that “hump management is only being done for a few residents on Marine Drive.”
“Every resident and every tourist is impacted by this issue,” he said.
Coun. Ernie Klassen noted that the hump is “one of the hot potatoes in White Rock” but said that he supported the call for better views of the ocean, the promenade and pier, which he described as “the city’s greatest tourist attractions.”
“I don’t want to clear cut the hump, but the way we’re dealing with it now is not the way that it should be dealt with – there should be a whole lot of pockets where people can actually see the view.”
But South Surrey resident Don Pitcairn, of SmartRail – who has been a long-time, highly vocal critic of vegetation management on White Rock and South Surrey – and Smart Rail president Ken Jones, of White Rock, offered a different perspective on safety and the hump.
In remarks to council during the earlier question-and-answer period, Pitcairn questioned why trees on the hump were being cut again – and what all the tree removal over the years has cost taxpayers.
He noted that tree cutting on the hump is a comparatively recent development – up until some 15 years ago the area used to be forested, he added.
“This hillside has a long history of slide activity,” Pitcairn said. “A picture taken in 1920 from the pier shows four vertical slides and a lateral slump on the hump.”
Retaining walls needed to be built after a section of Marine Drive broke away in the early 1960s, Pitcairn told council, recalling that they were rebuilt last year at a cost of $1.7 million to the city.
He added that White Rock was warned by Transport Canada in 2007 that cutting of trees to enhance residents’ views was one of the main causes of landslides onto the BNSF tracks.
Sidewalks and railings along the hump were replaced a decade ago, he said because “they were leaning toward the ocean at a 15 to 20 degree angle due to soil creep.”
“Cracks in the roadway along Marine Drive show the slope is moving,” he said.
Jones reiterated his comments to the city in an email copied to Peace Arch News Tuesday (July 25).
“If more people don’t speak up, those wanting views instead of trees will have Council approve further taxpayers’ dollars to clear cut the entire area, and then pay more millions to again stabilize Marine Drive and…prevent slides from covering the Promenade and the BNSF tracks…” he wrote.
“Any derailment of hazardous chemicals, gases, and other products as a result of the destabilizing of this slope could create a ‘Lac-Megantic’ disaster or worse, here in White Rock.”
alex.browne@peacearchnews.com
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