Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Blaine Payne. I'm the Mayor of Parson's Pond. With me today is Councillor Josephine Goosney.
We would like to thank you for the invitation to join your meeting today. I appreciate the opportunity to add a rural municipality's perspective to your committee study on protecting Canadian residents from extreme weather events. Parson's Pond is a small town in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we have been facing major erosion issues for decades. I would like to bring to the attention of your committee that our efforts to mitigate the threats have been completely unsuccessful.
Parson's Pond is a beautiful community, surrounded by mountains and oceans on the Northern Peninsula and filled with friendly people who all share the same fear: erosion. It is an ongoing issue happening along the majority of our coastline. With every storm, we watch our land washing away. You see the mud in the water from the erosion and watch land falling away. You watch the coastline narrowing away with every storm, getting closer to the houses along the entire length of our community, from the north side to the south. Even on dry summer days without waves and water washing it away, you can see the dry sand blowing.
Residents and locals have been watching this happen for years, and nothing has been done to prevent it from worsening. It is very noticeable for those of us living here. As a kid growing up, I remember seeing the town lighthouse having to be moved closer to the houses twice because the land was eroding and it was about to fall over the edge of the bank, and that was in the centre of the town.
On the north side is more vacant land, so it's going unnoticed by many, but it's still happening. We can see it happening. On the south side of town, at the south entry point of Parson's Pond, especially, it is really noticeable. It's getting closer to the Route 430 highway, which is the access point to all of the Northern Peninsula, so if the highway washes away, there will be no more access to the Northern Peninsula, making this issue extend outside our small community by threatening the entire coast.
We are all concerned about this issue, but we have not been able to address it with the current realities and limited resources of our small community. Resettlement is not an option. Nobody wants to resettle from Parson's Pond. We have a nice, safe community. We have local services, a volunteer fire brigade, the clinic and grocery stores. We have booming lobster and forestry industries. We have clean drinking water throughout the community and we have sewer services.
Parson's Pond is a well-established community, and we welcome growth, not resettlement. If the time comes when we have to resettle due to safety, the erosion would have to be fixed anyway, because “Pond” is in our name. Our pond runs from the ocean to the base of the mountains. We are surrounded by marshland, wetland and swamps. There is no other way to connect to the Northern Peninsula but where the road currently is. It's at the narrowest and shallowest water in the pond. You cannot bypass Parson's Pond as there is nowhere to move the road.
There is urgency to the growing concern, and if we can fix the issue today, we can prevent future erosion. In our view, this is the only option and it is the safest option. If we cannot address this issue, the entire Northern Peninsula will be cut off.
I have had friends from as far up as St. Anthony on the Northern Peninsula ask me about erosion happening here in Parson's Pond, because as they drive through, they see this happen. They notice it, and they understand the consequences if this issue doesn't get resolved.
The funding required is too big for the town to fix it itself, and all available funding has too big a requirement for our little town to qualify. We know this is serious. In the context of your study, it's important that the federal government understand the dynamics of our community.
Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee on behalf of the town about these ongoing erosion issues. I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you.