Environment
Niagara farm family’s four-year battle with their conservation authority grinds on
When the White family’s farm was regularly flooded, they responded by putting up low berms to stop the damage, only to be charged by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority. A justice of the peace upheld the charges but said the family’s treatment was ‘egregious in nature.’ The dispute is far from over
by DON STONEMAN
In 2008, when heavy machine operator David White pushed dirt around parts of his elderly parents’ farm property that were susceptible to flooding and erosion, he broke the law, a justice of the peace ruled last October.
Is adding hundreds of thousands of tons of fill a ‘normal farming practice’?
No, says the Township of Uxbridge, anxious for its aquifer, and a Superior Court Justice agrees with it
by DON STONEMAN
Corrado and Concetta Bartolo say they want to turn a property they bought in the Township of Uxbridge into a productive farm by adding hundreds of thousands of tons of fill. And they say they consulted with township officials about improving the property for farming before purchasing the property.
Cleaning out long-neglected farm drains
A coalition of organizations is collaborating to clean the drains in Beaver Creek, in Fort Erie, and those involved hope it will be a template for future cleaning of drains where at-risk species have been found
by DON STONEMAN
Ed Dykstra farms in Fort Erie. Ask him how many of his more than 2,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat and hay are affected by the town’s long-neglected drainage systems and he says: “All of them.”
Will farmers have to start paying for their water?
That’s what grape growers like Niagara’s David Lambert fear, but experts say that this isn’t on the horizon
by SUSAN MANN
Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower David Lambert has to irrigate his 200-acre crop about once a month if his area hasn’t received any rain, pumping water out of a nearby creek to use in both his overhead and trickle irrigation systems.