The Association remains committed, as always, to the preservation and protection of our coastline for the current and future generations. It is a critical and core part of our mandate.

As reported in August, we were in the process of assessing the situation and impact on the Trail.

Unfortunately, our attempts to meet with the Witless Bay Town Council to address the Ragged Beach problem were declined by Council. As well, our request to sign a MOU regarding the care and management of the trail passing through the town has been declined. In fact, we have not received any communication from the Town or the Province since the shutdown, and we were not given the opportunity to participate in the province's assessment and approval process.



On Monday, November 18th, by email just before noon, along with the general public, we were informed by the Town that construction will begin on Thursday, November 21st, and will complete within 4-5 days. We received no prior communication from the Town or the Province that the permit had been approved. At our request on Monday, the Town sent us a copy of permit #ALT10695-2019 on Tuesday, as issued by the Dept. of Municipal Affairs. There is no reference or any consideration given to the trail in this permit.

We have contacted the province expressing our grave concern regarding Ragged Beach, requesting the Minister of Municipal Affairs to place a stop work order on the permit, as well as questioning the relevance and effectiveness of our Licence to Occupy as a trail protection tool. In addition, we have notified the Witless Bay Town Council of our disappointment and that we are addressing the matter with the province.

We have attempted to actively engage the provincial government, from November 2018 to November 2019, to work with us to work on a more effective long-term trail protection solution without much success to date. We have been assured that the status quo is good enough and the LTO is all the protection we need. This statement was released on behalf of Premier Ball in May 2019 during the provincial election: "The ECT is considered an item of provincial interest, even though we do not have such a designation in the Act, and any applications coming forward that would impact the trail system would be highlighted by the Planning & Land Use Division of Municipal Affairs." This was not consistent with the outcome of the Ragged Beach assessment and based on our experience “no contact” the impact on the trail, from our perspective, was not considered.

The trail impact is obvious based on the work completed at Ragged Beach this past summer. The question is: Can it be remediated? We will keep you posted.