LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Every community that hosts aggregate extraction should pay attention to the recently posted Ontario Land Tribunal decisions on the Nelson Aggregates quarry expansion at Mount Nemo in Burlington, and the Lobo gravel pit near Ball’s Bridge on the banks of the Maitland river in Huron County.
Although the locations and circumstances are different, they reveal that every time a community gets deeply involved, applications receive greater scrutiny.
Engaged resident groups identify more issues; more protections are put in place; better monitoring is established; site plans are improved and mitigation measures are added.
This poses a very uncomfortable question:
Why does it take a citizen group spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve a proposal for a gravel pit or quarry?
The Nelson Aggregates proposal at Mount Nemo is a powerful example.
The City of Burlington and citizens group CORE Burlington fought this application side by side. Along with other parties and agencies, they both participated in an extraordinarily detailed process. A Joint Agency Review Team (JART) identified more than 600 unresolved issues across 13 technical areas, including air quality, private wells, natural heritage, traffic and rehabilitation.
Nonetheless, Nelson abandoned the JART process and appealed to the OLT in a hearing that involved dozens of witnesses and tens of thousands of pages of evidence. It is commendable that Burlington fought to protect their constituents, this is not the norm.
CORE reported raising hundreds of thousands in funds to pay for legal and expert costs. Think about that. While working hand in hand with the City of Burlington more than half a million dollars were raised by volunteers so the community could meaningfully participate at the OLT hearing.
Friends of Ball’s Bridge and Little Lakes had to fight alone and raised funds for hydrogeology, ecology, cultural heritage, air quality, traffic, planning and legal expertise simply to ensure that their concerns could be properly presented to the Tribunal.
The Provincial Planning Statement is clear that aggregate extraction is an important provincial interest. But it is equally clear that extraction is supposed to be undertaken in a way that minimizes social, economic and environmental impacts. It also recognizes public health and safety and environmental protection as important planning interests.
If every time a citizen group gets involved, the proposal receives better scrutiny and additional measures are introduced to effectively minimize impacts, we should be asking ourselves why is that our responsibility? The Provincial Planning Statement requires impacts to be minimized, shouldn’t our policies and approval processes be designed to make that happen without requiring citizens to fight for it?
The reality is the current approval system does a good job of protecting the interests of the Gravel Goliaths but a lackluster job at protecting public health, community safety and the environment.
Studies and research has shown that there is currently at least a 38 year licensed supply so there is plenty of time to pause new applications and expansions while we work to fix this and still comfortably meet demand.
Ontario needs to have a much bigger conversation about aggregate policy beginning with stronger policies at the municipal level and extending all the way to meaningful provincial policy reform.
You can start the conversation with this simple question to all of your Municipal candidates:
How will you ensure our municipal and provincial governments intervene to balance the need for aggregate extraction and protection of our communities health, water, air and surrounding lands rather than relying solely on the efforts of volunteer residents?
We can and need to do better.
Sign the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition’s petition for a moratorium on applications for new sites and expansions and meaningful policy reform www.reformgravelmining.com
Judi Smelko
Saugeen Preservation Society Inc.
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.