Surrey sued over noise from blueberry farmers’ cannons
Posted August 24, 2011 5:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – He says it’s like living in a war zone and he can’t take it anymore.
Jim McMurtry of Surrey is suing the city for $25,000 because blueberry farmers keep firing noise cannons by his house to scare off birds.
“Surrey has enough gunshot sounds as it is, but to live along gunshot sounds every three
seconds is too much,” McMurtry said. “One cannon fires three times in five minutes and farmers have fifteen cannons, so we’re hearing this all summer long.”
He says there is a lot of tension between his neighbours and the farmers right now.
“It’s getting to the point for a lot of people here think it’s going to end up in violence,” McMurtry said.
“Two years ago when we had a big protest on this, police had to be called in a hurry because there are a lot of hot feelings on both sides. The farmers and we need some sort of mitigation to allow farmers to protect their crops but that will also allow residents to live peacefully.”
He’s hoping some kind of resolution will come through the legal process.
“I guess if I don’t have success suing the City of Surrey in small claims court, then the next step is to go to the BC Supreme Court in the form of a class action law suit,” McMurtry said. “There are lots of people who would want to join in on one.”
McMurtry would like to see the city offer incentives, or at the very least some kind of encouragement for farmers to use other technologies to keep birds away.
