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One resident shared she was hit with a $22,000 quote from an archeological company to dig a trench for her water and sewer lines
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Lytton residents held a rally Wednesday to protest delays in rebuilding their town, which burned to the ground more than two years ago after a devastating wildfire in June 2021.
Residents are fed up with roadblocks including, most recently, potentially expensive archeological work that could cost property owners tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs.
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“After the last two years, people have felt there’s just been roadblocks after roadblocks, excuses and reasons why things haven’t been moving faster,” said Lytton Mayor Denise O’Connor, who is in support of the rally that was organized by residents.
No debris was removed from the village until a year after the fire on June 30, 2021, she said. Then there were delays during remediation of the contaminated soil.
Finally, in July, trucks began to roll into town carrying clean soil to backfill properties. Today, about 80 per cent of the town is backfilled and ready for construction. But there’s a hitch.
Lytton was built atop a significant First Nations heritage site that’s protected under the B.C. Heritage Conservation Act.
To date, archeological monitors have identified and protected burial ground and worked to mitigate other significant sites during remediation and recovery activities, said the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council which, along with Lytton First Nation, the Village of Lytton and the province’s archeology branch, established a heritage committee to make sure culturally significant sites are protected during the rebuilding process.
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Monitors have recovered more than 7,000 stone artifacts, some dating back 7,500 years.
But the meticulous work to protect archeological sites comes at a cost to present-day homeowners, some of whom have already given up on the town because of the long wait, said O’Connor.
The catalyst for Wednesday’s rally was a recent community meeting where a resident revealed she was hit with a $22,000 quote from an archeological company to dig a trench for her water and sewer lines.
“It was about $1,600 a day to monitor or have people observing the digging and they calculated it out to be about a couple weeks of work,” said O’Connor.
It is unclear how many other residents would be on the hook for similar archeological-related work — which isn’t covered by insurance — but it’s the uncertainty that was the last straw.
“Will I or won’t I? Will mine be less or more?” O’Connor said in explaining the residents’ concerns.
She said Lytton residents, half of whom are First Nations members, recognize the area is archeologically significant to the First Nation but feel the focus is too much on the past, not the present. “They haven’t eased up on any process to support people,” she said.
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In a statement, the Nlaka’pamux tribal council said protecting remains of the heritage of the Nlaka’pamux and ensuring ancestral remains are not disturbed is important to the Nation.
“As the village enters the rebuilding phase, the Kumsheen heritage committee will assist property owners to understand their regulatory requirements to manage archeological sites,” it said Wednesday.
The provincial government said it is providing more than $58 million for rebuilding costs, including re-establishing essential services like water treatment and sewer infrastructure, municipal services and staffing, debris removal, soil remediation and required archeology work. Almost $41 million of the funds have been transferred to the Village of Lytton.
“The Village of Lytton leads recovery efforts,” said B.C. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston. “The province continues to support the Village in these activities.
“Provincial funding continues to support archeology, remediation, and recovery efforts, as well as streamlining permitting for Lytton.”
The ministry directed questions about the archeological contract to A.E.W. Limited Partnership, an Indigenous-owned consulting firm that was awarded the contract for archeological and heritage monitoring during the rebuilding process by the village.
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O’Connor said the village does not have the authority to speed things up or limit the scope of the archeological work, which is governed by provincial legislation.
“I don’t believe we, as a village, can come in and do that, she said, calling on the government to step in and expedite the process.
“Our feeling is that for two years nothing has changed. They say it was an unprecedented fire, yet it doesn’t feel for the people here that we’ve had an unprecedented response.”
chchan@postmedia.com
x.com/cherylchan
— with files from Joanne Lee-Young
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