B.C. to review 2008 coroner recommendations to address landslide risk

Concerns about landslides were reignited last month after a mudslide swept through a home in Lions Bay, killing two people.

Published Jan 08, 2025  •  Last updated 7 hours ago  •  4 minute read

The Sea to Sky Highway linking Vancouver and Whistler was closed in both directions after a mudslide near Lions Bay brought down trees and debris to block the road a month ago. Photo by Michal Aibin /The Canadian Press

The provincial NDP government says it will review recommendations from a 15-year-old coroner’s investigation that were meant to address the risk of landslides to B.C. communities.

This follows reporting by Postmedia that showed the province had not established landslide risk tolerance levels for existing homes and future developments, which was one of eight coroner recommendations from a 2008 investigation.

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Other recommendations included that the province develop a comprehensive landslide hazard management strategy focused on prevention and risk mitigation, consider establishing a legislated standard for how landslide assessments should be conducted, and co-ordinate the development of provincial guidelines to assist local governments in recognizing when a risk assessment should be carried out.

“We can’t comment on why the former (B.C. Liberal) government didn’t follow through on the coroner’s recommendations nearly 20 years ago. Our government is reviewing the 2008 recommendations,” B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship officials said in an email sent from public affairs officer Akriti Tyagi.

The internal review will determine if any of the coroner recommendations “are feasible and beneficial in terms of increasing public safety,” said the written statement.

Ministry officials did not respond to a question on how long the review would take. Provincial officials said no one was available for an interview.

The coroner recommendations were delivered 16 years ago after an examination of the death of 43-year-old Eliza Wing Mun Kuttner in a landslide on Jan. 19, 2005 that carried a District of North Vancouver home down a steep slope at 3:30 a.m.

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Coroner Tom Pawlowski’s 2008 report found that potential landslides in the Berkley-Riverside area in the District of North Vancouver were both predictable and preventable, but the perception that there was an unacceptable risk was not recognized by government or the residents of the area.

Concerns about landslide and debris flow risks were reignited last month after a mudslide swept through a home in Lions Bay along the Sea to Sky Highway corridor, killing two people.

The Sea to Sky Highway corridor is an area of known risk for landslides, debris flows and rockfalls. Two people were killed in a slide in Lions Bay in 1983 and another nine people were killed in a nearby slide in 1981 that wiped out a bridge.

Creating landslide risk tolerance levels, also called landslide safety levels, was a key recommendation by the coroner in 2008, and would help communities and experts determine whether, for example, it is safe to build along steep slope areas or where there are creeks, and whether changes are needed to protect existing homes.

The coroner’s report noted that both Hong Kong and Australia used landslide safety levels. In those regions, for example, the landslide risk tolerance level is set at one death in 100,000 per year for new development and one in 10,000 for existing development. The risk tolerance levels allow experts to run calculations to determine whether a development in a particular area would meet the safety level or how to mitigate risks in homes that have already been built.

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The 2008 coroner recommendations also called for the province to develop and administer standardized training and education for local governments and their staff in identification of landslide hazard risks and interpretation of risk assessments prepared by qualified professionals, develop an internet-based databank of landslide hazard information and create an inter-ministry technical working group to oversee implementation of the recommendations.

As Postmedia reported earlier, the Village of Lions Bay council has twice been warned in the past six years about landslide and debris flow risks but has not acted on those concerns.

In April 2022, a consulting geoscientist warned Lions Bay council that climate change could bring more landslides and debris flows of varying sizes, and laid out steps that could reduce risks.

In 2018, the Lions Bay’s council received a report from Cordilleran Geoscience that recommended closer scrutiny of slide hazards. The report was meant to help Lions Bay create development permit areas that would require geotechnical assessments at a defined risk level for new developments or when extensive renovations or property changes were carried out. The report recommended adopting the District of North Vancouver’s landslide safety policy, which set risk tolerance levels similar to those in Hong Kong and Australia after the 2005 fatal slide.

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In its response to Postmedia questions, water, land and resource stewardship ministry officials also noted that the recently-established Emergency and Disaster Management Act recognizes the “concurrent and overlapping roles” of decision-makers within the provincial government, local authorities, and Indigenous governing bodies.

Local governments and First Nations have said they are willing to embrace the changes, but warn they must be backed up with resources and funding to support increased disaster-management-preparedness requirements and for projects to increase resilience.

Recommended from Editorial

1. 

   No provincial landslide risk levels in B.C., even though recommended by coroner in 2008

2. 

   Lions Bay was warned in 2022 climate change would bring more landslides, debris flows

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