(Grant Williams at Tzouhalem Road fill site in December 2025. CHEK News)
Cowichan Tribes member at centre of two controversial dump sites on reserve land
‘There’s a lot of money involved in this. You know that as well as I do.’
A burly 64-year-old Grant Williams walks towards me the moment I drive onto his residential property in the 5300-block of Indian Road.
He wears a mackinaw jacket, shorts, and running shoes, and stops next to a black Dodge Ram pickup truck.
I'm here to learn more about a Cowichan Tribes stop-work order for an unauthorized dump site across the road.
“Are you the individual involved?” I ask.
“ No,” he replies.
Then he changes his tune.
“Yeah, it’s me. I own the place. I own the property.”
On January 28, sixmountains.ca first reported that Cowichan Tribes had posted stop-work orders outside the gated dump site on Indian Road as well as in front of Williams’ home.
The order demanded a stop to the “import and dumping of all materials, and any related works, effective immediately and until further notice.” (https://www.sixmountains.ca/article/39b7e6ef-e601-44ae-a41f-d882d4bf86ab )
On January 29, Tribes issued a news release saying a stop-work order had been posted for five lots on Indian Road.
The individual coordinating the dumping activities is cooperating, the release said, including by:
— Providing all required soil quality assessments.
— Voluntarily paying a fine upon learning they were out of compliance.
— Actively working with Lulumexun staff to come into compliance.
Neither Tribes nor Williams has revealed the amount of the fine, but Williams told sixmountains.ca on Friday it is “substantial.”
Whatever the amount, Williams says he can afford it.
“I’m rich, let’s put it that way. I’ll tell you that.”
He says he pays cash for his various vehicles, including a $60,000 Lexus that just pulled into the yard.
Williams hopes to open the dump again, but says he's cautious about saying anything that would give him a "black eye" with Tribes.
“There’s a lot of money involved in this. You know that as well as I do.”
Williams wouldn't provide details on the material dumped at the site or where it originated, but he said: “It’s all clean stuff. Everything I do is legit.”
(Submitted photo of trucks filing onto Indian Road dump site)
In that case, why pay the fine?
“Just to shut people up. I could afford it."
Is the dumping his source of wealth?
“Maybe, maybe not.
"Maybe I won the lottery. I won the lottery, too."
Williams said he won "enough to pay a fine" about a year ago, but provided no details.
He is listed under the business directory of the Khowutzun Development Corporation website as a trucker.
“I do what I have to do to survive,” he said. “I just live and learn. I listen to a lot of people. It comes naturally. I’m a businessman.”
sixmountains.ca first interviewed Williams by phone in 2024 regarding an investigation by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) into dumping of fill material on the Cowichan Tribes reserve on Tzouhalem Road.
(Fill site on Tzouhalem Road)
Williams said at that time he spent $12,000 on an "environment test" and had the band's okay to dump fill. "It's not a major problem," said the contractor. "I got the approval. I don't know why everybody's in a huff about it.”
sixmountains.ca followed the investigation and reported on Nov. 21, 2025, that DFO had issued a Corrective Measures Order for the restoration of fish habitat impacted by the “unauthorized partial infilling of Tzouhalem Creek” on Cowichan Tribes reserve near Cowichan Bay.
Cowichan Tribes had also issued a stop-work order for that site.
(CHEK News: https://cheknews.ca/they-gave-me-the-green-light-tzouhalem-road-dump-site-operator-speaks-out-1295242/ )
Speaking now about the Tzouhalem site, Williams says: “That was all clean stuff, engineered stuff. The property owner’s happy. But everyone’s saying it’s all contaminated. How do you know it’s contaminated?”
He added: “I do everything more than what the book asks. I cover all my bases. I do everything legally, but everyone just has their own opinion.”
During the Friday interview with sixmountains.ca, Williams also said he takes exception to non-Indigenous people trying to influence management of reserve lands.
“Why do white people think they own the reserve? That’s what kills me.”
Alison Nicholson, a director on the Cowichan Valley Regional District, confirmed Sunday she was contacted by concerned area residents in December and January about the dump and she referred them to Cowichan Tribes.
A couple of issues recently have changed public opinion on First Nations, Williams says.
First: a Cowichan Tribes land-title victory in BC Supreme Court last August in the lower Fraser River in Richmond. That decision is under appeal.
Second: a provincial pollution prevention order against Tribes member James Anthony Peter last October for a large unauthorized landfill on a different site on Indian Road. (https://www.sixmountains.ca/article/fdaaf885-11e9-432e-9041-aa3c4f965a5e )
Williams describes his reaction to these events:
“'Oh no,' I said. 'F—k, that’s all gonna come back and haunt me. Then, all of a sudden, ‘those damn Indians.’"
(James Anthony Peter has received a pollution prevention order for Indian Road landfill.)
Williams says he has “lived here all my life, 64 years, and I went to school locally.”
He knows Peter: "He's my age. I grew up with him."
But Williams won’t talk about that dump site: “It’s none of my business.”
MacNutt Enterprises Ltd. was among the companies that trucked material to the Indian Road sites.
Company owner John MacNutt, a resident of the Glenora area, did not respond to a request for comment.
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— Larry Pynn, Feb. 1, 2026