Developer sues government over wartime and post-war bombs

A Vancouver development company says the federal government should have told it that the property it bought might be littered with leftover unexploded bombs.

The 546 hectare parcel of land overlooks Kalamalka Lake near Vernon, British Columbia. K&L Land Partnership paid $15-million for the property in 2005 with the intention of building housing subdivisions.

The property however was next to what had been a military training camp between 1939-1945 where soldiers were trained in using various bombs, grenades, and mortars.  Some of these didn’t explode, and some ended up on the neighbouring property.

In 2011, K&L had to stop their project when they were advised by the Department of Defence that there could still be unexploded bombs on their property.  The lawsuit claims the government violated the Explosives Act by abandoning the site and not informing them.

The suit says that since 1945, eight people have been killed and three wounded by explosives at the former camp or nearby land. The government swept the land after two boys were killed in 1963 when toying with a shell, and then swept again in 2007, two years after the land was sold to K&L.

The suit says the government should have advised the company about the possibility of unexploded ordnance before they bought the land.

The government says it did not intentionally hide any information about the land and that the company could have easily learned of the situation by checking newspapers and histories of the area.

The Department of Defence conducted live-fire training in the area until 1971, and the most common ordnance found was 2 and 3 inch mortar shells. It adds it cannot know the number of unexploded ordance but there are some at various locations at the Vernon site. It adds it has conducted  several clearance operations since 1960.

The lawsuit is expected to be heard in the provincial Supreme Court in 2014