The Nova Scotia government introduced a new Coastal Protection Act this week.
It’s designed to protect the province’s 13,000 kilometres of coastline
John Somers of the Department of Environment says the act includes provincewide rules for what can and cannot be done along Nova Scotia’s vulnerable coastlines.
“The purpose of the act is to prevent unnecessary development in areas where it’s going to cause environmental damage or where the structure that get built are going to be at risk from sea level rise, storm surge, and coastal erosion.”
He says the act focuses on straddling the high watermark to allow for the dynamic movement of the coast and there’s still a lot of details to sort out.
Somers says the act will declare coastal protection zones.
“And it’ll put rules in place for what is acceptable and what is not acceptable for building in those areas and so it’s designed to prevent people from building in those areas that are really risky.”
He says once the act is passed they’ll have 12 to 18 months to develop the regulations.
Somers says there will be broad public consultations on the content of those regulations.
Reported by Gary Nickerson
