October 6, 2005
For Immediate Release

ESCARPMENT PLANNERS PAN DUFFERIN QUARRY EXPANSION
Just-Released Report Shows Escarpment Commission Staff Have Major Concerns

In a mid-August report just released by the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC), the NEC's professional land use planners effectively pan the expansion of Dufferin Aggregates' Milton Quarry, which is within the provincial government's new Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt. The NEC staff report takes a far stronger position than the NEC itself sent to the Ontario Cabinet in late August. Pressure from the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment (CONE) led to the release of the report last week.

In June, a hearing board approved a 205-acre expansion of Dufferin's existing 1,156-acre quarry. CONE and the Halton-based group Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources (POWER) jointly opposed the expansion at the hearing and when the board approved it, appealed the board's decision to Cabinet. The NEC staff report was requested by the commissioners but was not sent to Cabinet until CONE pressed the issue in late September. Instead, the NEC simply asked Cabinet to be "sensitive" to four issues it asked its staff to examine.

In an unprecedented move, Dufferin Aggregates proposes to add lands to the Niagara Escarpment Plan (NEP) Area in exchange for blasting out parts of the existing natural corridor of the Escarpment. NEC staff state in their August 18 report that "to undo the boundary in one specific instance suggests that the natural environment of the Niagara Escarpment is malleable and can be moved on the basis of specific applications. This also calls into question the permanence of the protection afforded to the NEP envisaged at the time the Plan was approved by the Province.... This could lead to the NEP being modified on a piecemeal basis. Boundary adjustments ... should not be driven by site-specific applications.... Developments should be tailored to the policies of the Plan, not the Plan to the development."

When asked by the NEC to evaluate the impact of the Dufferin application on the principle in the NEP of maintaining a continuous natural environment, the planners wrote that "the [proposed quarry expansion] represents a significant fragmenting or breaking of the continuity of the remaining natural corridor above the Escarpment in the Halton portion of the Planning Area. Much of the area is already substantially disturbed by mining.... Comprehensive rehabilitation of the area is anticipated to take a very long period of time. It is not accepted that rehabilitation can return the landscape or environment to what it was before quarrying occurred.... Adding lands outside the NEP to try and ensure continuity [of the natural environment] is a band aid approach to protection of the Escarpment corridor."

Finally, the NEC asked its planners about the perpetual water-pumping needed to maintain environmental features in the area (since Dufferin would mine well below the groundwater table) and the reliance on engineered solutions. The staff planners wrote: "Staff finds it difficult to accept that the [water-pumping] system proposed can or will be managed in perpetuity. Such a concept is unlikely given the scale of time that 'in perpetuity' suggests.... A ... reasonable view is that after an indeterminate amount of time, water management will cease and whatever environment exists in the area will then be impacted.... Engineering solutions of this magnitude run counter to the natural ecologic processes and principles encouraged and promoted in the Plan corridor."

"CONE is pleased that the NEC planners' position is now in the hands of Cabinet to assist in its deliberations," said Bradley Shaw, CONE's executive director. "However, it is troubling to us that the Commissioners adopted such a weak stance, asking Cabinet merely to be 'sensitive' to the issues, when their planning staff took such clear positions seriously questioning the viability of the Dufferin proposal."

It is unknown how long Cabinet will deliberate on the CONE-POWER appeal of the Dufferin Aggregates quarry expansion. In the past, Cabinet decisions on such appeals have taken months or more than a year to be reached.

CONE, founded in 1978, is an umbrella organization representing the interests of its 31 member groups, consisting of both province-wide environmental organizations and community-based groups along the Escarpment united in concern for proper protection of the Escarpment from inappropriate development.

Backgrounder

The August 18/05 NEC planners' report is available here.

The August 18/05 Niagara Escarpment resolution, forwarded to Cabinet, states in its entirety:

"The Niagara Escarpment Commission has reviewed the Petitions filed by CONE/POWER and Mr. Robin Denman with regard to the Joint Board hearing on the applications of Dufferin Aggregates, and the Decision of the Joint Board, and the responses to these Petitions made by Dufferin Aggregates and the Regional Municipality of Halton and Conservation Halton, as requested, and recommends that the Cabinet be sensitive to the following matters in its deliberations:

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1. The implications of land exchanges/Niagara Escarpment Plan additions as conditions of approval;
2. The implications of maintaining a perpetual pumping arrangement to maintain environmental features;
3. The reliance on engineered solutions to maintain critical aspects of the mining and rehabilitation plans; and
4. An evaluation of the impact of the entire application of Dufferin Aggregates on the principle of maintaining a continuous natural environment as required by the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and the Niagara Escarpment Plan."