Their neighbours changed the coastline and they want it fixed

CBC

21-07-2025

A long, quiet beach in the tiny community of Wards Brook, N.S., used to be a place locals would visit for calming walks and family gatherings, but in recent years it's become a source of discord and the root of sadness and frustration.
Oralee O'Byrne lived in a house next to Wards Brook Beach in her teenage years, and still lives nearby.
She said generations of her family have cherished the beach. She scattered her late son's ashes there. She's watched, mournfully, as the landscape has changed.
"It's been really painful, actually," said O'Byrne.
First, someone built a causeway across the community's namesake brook and used it to bring in heavy machinery to change the brook's path.
Wards Brook used to take a sharp turn at the top of the beach and meander along, parallel to the coastline, until it emptied into a small wetland. The redirection sent it across the beach and into the ocean – Greville Bay, to be specific, an appendage of the Bay of Fundy.
Next, someone built a wall of armour rock in the brook's former path, intersecting with a right-of-way to the beach. Locals say it used to be possible to drive a vehicle across the brook, directly onto a large sand bar, but now access is limited to those who are capable of climbing down a pile of boulders.
"It just seems like it's taken a lot away from us … a lot of memories that still could be made aren't being made," O'Byrne said.
"We can't, we don't go to that beach anymore," she added.
When the tide is out, the brook is narrow enough to walk or jump across, but when the tide is in, the new mouth of the brook is so wide that it makes a watery chasm in the middle of the beach.
It isn't only the beach that's divided. The issue has caused a rift in the community.
Dara Bowser lives in the house where O'Byrne spent her youth, ever since he bought it from O'Byrne's mother several years ago. He blames two neighbouring property owners for the changes to the landscape.
"They don't talk to me," Bowser said. "I don't talk to them."
Looking for government action
Bowser and other locals who spoke to CBC News believe the changes to the brook and the beach were done illegally.
They point to regulations under the Environment Act that prohibit altering a watercourse without a permit, and prohibit interfering with the path of a watercourse until it's been dry for 40 years.
They want the provincial government to enforce the rules and to ensure that any possible remediation is carried out.
A spokesperson for the provincial department of environment said the case is "an ongoing matter." They wouldn't make Environment Minister Tim Halman available for an interview or answer any questions.
For Bowser, it's been "an ongoing matter," for far too long. He recalls the causeway being built in 2016, followed in 2019 with the brook's diversion and the construction of the rock wall.
He's made repeated complaints to authorities and grown increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of action.
Bowser has received several sets of documents about the case under freedom of information laws, which show provincial officials began issuing warnings in 2016 against using equipment and moving gravel on the beach.
They also show an investigation into the diversion of Wards Brook was underway in the spring of 2019. There was talk of the possibility of charges, but it's not clear whether any were laid.
A couple of months later, a conservation officer compiled notes describing an interview with a person who admitted to altering the path of the brook without a permit. The interviewee's name is redacted, but they're described as a resident of the area.
The documents also include records of an investigation into the rock wall, including talk of a potential violation of the Environment Act. In 2021, the province ordered the people who built it to move part of it back, out of the brook's original path.
Some rocks were moved, but it didn't appease Bowser, who thinks that what remains still stands in the brook's way.
Bowser asked for an update in the spring of 2024, and was told in a letter from the department of environment that "the responsible parties" would be required "to re-establish Wards Brook in its pre-disturbance location."
The letter said restoration work was expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2024, but nearly 10 months later, no such work has taken place.
"They are not disclosing, they are not being transparent about this at all," said Bowser.
Pat Mason, another Wards Brook resident, thinks it comes down to political priorities.
"When you're a small town, you really don't get noticed," he said.
Mason said he and his neighbours have looked for help from a multitude of officials at every level of government and are at a loss for what more they can do.
"It's just unfortunate that we have to go to this great length of getting things done," he said. "I mean, something so simple can take so long."
Why'd they do it?
According to the conservation officer's notes, the person who admitted to diverting the brook said they did it to improve beach access.
"[They] claimed that the brook that has always flowed over the beach access road was high (no culvert was ever put in the road). [They] wanted to create a better access road for the locals who go down the beach to enjoy," the officer wrote.
In a separate report, an Environment Department inspector said the rock wall was built to prevent erosion, which is a common practice on coastal properties in Nova Scotia.
Bowser suspects different motives. With the brook no longer bisecting the coastline, his two neighbours have clearer ocean access from their properties.
CBC News made multiple attempts to reach the owners of both properties, but did not receive a response.
Why does it matter?
Nicolas Winkler, coastal adaptation co-ordinator at the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, said conflicts between community members over coastal issues are common in Nova Scotia.
"They can be very visceral…. In some cases we've heard of near-violence happening. We've heard over the years on different coastal access stories of guns making an appearance," he said.
Winkler said there is not a good mechanism for resolving these issues, and they often drag on for years. Wards Brook, he said, exemplifies this problem.
Wards Brook is a sleepy community made up of a couple dozen residences and a shipbuilding museum that's only open six months of the year. There are no signs leading to Wards Brook Beach; it's known and used primarily by locals.
But Winkler said this case goes beyond the immediate impact it has on a small number of locals. He said it's part of a broader issue of coastal stewardship and the importance of the ocean to Nova Scotia's economy and culture.
"As we chip away at coastal spaces and we lose that access, whether it's the physical access to the coast or whether it's the quality of the access … we are losing that sense of connection to the coast," he said.