Nine Arrested, Released At Shawnigan Lake Protest

RCMP arrested nine people Tuesday for blocking a roadway outside a contaminated soil landfill near Shawnigan Lake. Photograph By CHEK NEWS

There was a heavy police presence in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island Tuesday morning as a large crowd of protesters blocked trucks from entering a contaminated soil dump site.

According to CHEK News, a crowd of protesters gathered before dawn on Stebbings Road in Shawnigan Lake near a contaminated soil dump site.

They formed a blockade, and prevented a line of dump trucks from making their deliveries to South Island Resource Management.

Armed with a new court injunction, a large contingent of RCMP officers arrived and started arresting anyone refusing to move from the blockade.

The RCMP arrested nine people.

The nine, who were later released without charge, were among 200 people protesting near the Stebbings Road property owned by Cobble Hill Holdings Ltd., RCMP said.

“They were given the opportunity to move and then they maintained their position on the roadway and so they were arrested because they were breaching the injunction,” she said.

There were no injuries and “the arrests were without incident,” Shoihet said.

The protest began at 6:30 a.m. and lasted until about 11 a.m.

Police warned those arrested that if they blocked the trucks again, they would be going to jail.

Still, many said they wouldn’t back down and would return to the protest site Wednesday at 6:30am.

South Island Resource Management said while it recognizes the right for people to protest, it will continue to call in the RCMP to stop behaviour that puts the company and its employees at risk.

The RCMP, meanwhile, said it will continue to assess protests on a day-by-day basis.

Cobble Hill Holdings’s Stebbings Road site