by SUSAN MANN
Aggregate extraction companies wanting to operate on prime agricultural land will have to complete agricultural impact studies if a proposed change to the Aggregate Resources Act moves ahead.
Currently developers aren’t required to complete such studies.
The change, which defines prime farmland as Class 1-3 lands, is being proposed as part of the Ontario government’s review of the Aggregate Resources Act. The proposal is available for comment until Dec. 15.
Ontario Federation of Agriculture spokespeople are scratching their heads as to just what the proposal will mean for agriculture. That there would be an impact if the change were implemented, there is no doubt — what’s unknown is whether the impact will be positive or negative.
“Our concern is once the soil is taken away, it’s very difficult to reconstruct the farmland, says Neil Currie, the organization’s general manager. “We have serious concerns with taking away farmland for aggregate.”
photo: Don McCabe
OFA President Don McCabe says the federation welcomes the concepts outlined in the government’s proposal document. But “it’s a proverbial devil in the details item.”
The federation recognizes the aggregate industry is necessary for the province. However, “we have to make sure we’re exhausting aggregate extraction from lands that aren’t as productive” for farming, he notes.
The proposal will also require developers seeking licences to locate aggregate pits or quarries on farmland in agricultural use but not in prime agricultural areas to complete a pre-extraction statement outlining the agricultural capability of the soil. That requirement will apply to operations extracting more than 20,000 tonnes annually.
All required reports related to farmland would have to be prepared by qualified experts, the proposal says.
Ted Wigdor, chief executive officer of the Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, says the government’s proposed changes aren’t the final word on the Act’s review. “Anything in the paper is subject to further discussion and we still have to see what the legislation will actually say.”
The non-profit association is based in Mississauga and represents more than 280 sand, gravel and crushed stone producers and suppliers in Ontario. They provide about 164 million tonnes of aggregate used in the province annually.
In a February article in the association’s magazine, Avenues, writer George Lourenco, resources manager at Capital Paving Inc., says some of the best agricultural fields have some of the largest and highest quality sand and gravel beneath their soils. Still, the amount of aggregate extraction facilities located on farmland is small, the article says, noting of the 12 million acres of Class 1-3 farmland in southern Ontario aggregate facilities occupy just 84,000 acres.
Wigdor says even though it’s too soon to say how the proposal calling for farmland impact studies will affect the association’s members, “there are potentially some merits to this requirement.”
On the plus side, the association’s members are doing some really good work “with respect to agricultural land rehabilitation. These agricultural impact assessements will provide greater information by which to work” and help members to better plan the rehabilitation of farmland once pit or quarry operations cease.
The possibility of added time and costs for the application could be “an area of concern,” for developers Wigdor says, noting currently some applications can take about 12 years to complete.
Aggregate is material such as sand, gravel and rock used to construct roads, bridges, subway systems and buildings. The proposal says aggregate is extracted from pits where loose material, such as sand and gravel, are removed; solid bedrock, such as limestone and granite, is extracted from quarries.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry manages Ontario’s aggregate resources. BF
Comments
Gordon Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, stated on May 7, 2012 that “because of the competitive pressure for land, pits now are often rehabilitated to residential or commercial developments.”
Mr. Rick Bonnette, Mayor of Halton Hills and Vice-Chair of the Greater Toronto countryside Mayors Alliance, noted on May 16, 2012 that “some landowners are very creative when it comes to quarry rehabilitation. Example: In Scugog, one of our communities, new owners of former quarries are claiming depleted sites are aerodromes, thereby using federal aviation legislation to bypass municipal oversight. When concerns are raised over the nature of the fill being dumped in the abandoned pit, municipal staff is told that local bylaws don’t apply since federal aviation regulations superseded them.”
Or sometimes pits never seem to get rehabilitated. Since there is no forced closing of a pit, a few truck loads of aggregate can be withdrawn on an annual basis so that the expense of rehabilitation does not have to be undertaken.
Further, Mr. Miller notes:
“There were changes in the fees some years ago, in 1997, to provide more fees, more money, for a number of things, including rehabilitation, but it remains a challenge to rehabilitate these aggregate sites. It remains a challenge to get the inspectors out there to site them or to give them rehabilitation orders, because there aren’t enough.
One special account of rehabilitation: When the fees were set aside back in 1997, they took a half cent per tonne and they gave it to an organization referred to as TOARC. Their job is to take that half cent per tonne and rehabilitate historic sites that were not rehabilitated back in the day. Now, these are sites which are often orphaned, if you like. They’re on people’s land, but the people who own it didn’t cause the problem. They were never closed, back in the day when we didn’t require them to be properly rehabilitated.
This is a good program. I cast no aspersions on it, other than: A half cent is not doing the trick. A half cent gets you about 45 sites a year. There are thousands of these sites. Increasing that to two cents would give you four times as many sites or more. It’s not a lot of money relative to the price of aggregate, but it’s certainly an area that could do with a lot of improvement. We could get a lot more of these scars on the landscape cleaned up.”
Finally, according to the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) “Depending upon whether you accept that there are only 2,700 sites that require rehabilitation, which is the position of the Ministry of Natural Resources, or 6,900 sites, which is the position of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, based on MNR’s own numbers, as the number of sites needing rehabilitation, the time it will take to achieve their rehabilitation ranges from about 90 years to 335 years, based on the current annual rate of rehabilitation.”
Too little too late!
Several farm groups including OFA continue to sit on their hands while aggregates from farmland have been wasted for minimal benefits for decades.
Case in point, wind energy projects that have depleted valuable gravel pits in many municipalities. Thousands of tons of aggregates used in the construction of many kms of private turbine access roads to nowhere, to dump many more tons of concrete aggregate in a monster hole in the ground, for expensive, intermittent electricity, which we don’t need, with no cost benefit analysis, is not in best net interest of society. Furthermore, the land taken out of production for each new turbine, plus access road and associated transformer, switching stations, has been estimated at approx. 3 ac. per turbine, yet farm groups say nothing except that we have members on both sides of the issue.
Tell us a little about what you have done to improve things.
There is a new gravel pit northwest of Stratford.
It's awesome. Everytime I go by loaded trucks are leaving while empty ones pull in.
Just think of the economic activity taking place, jobs and tax dollars.
No farm can touch it in those respects.
Raube Beuerman
I have thought for years that some of these yearly back roads graveling of Perth County are nothing more than make-work projects,the grading,the calcium,just a waste of taxpayers dollars.The initial costs associated with paving scares so many municipalities but they would be so much farther ahead !
As for whether a farm can productively touch a gravel operation, it would depend on the life of the pit.Some can last for decades,other are done in 5-10 years,well cared for prime farmland ..forever.
i live in a municipality where they paved all the back roads years ago and they are the worst roads you'll ever drive on with so many potholes. gravel back roads are far less expensive to maintain.
In the case of the pit I used as an example, the market has agreed with me, otherwise a farmer would have paid more than the person who purchased it.
As far as the economic productivity goes, you are right, some pits last for decades, while farms go on "forever".
Problem is, nobody lives forever.
Raube Beuerman
Well, not to get into another drawn out debate on what kind of farms they are but there are century farms(and in Perth County) that have been family owned for well over the 100 year mark.I have never been a Doomsday or Armageddon believer, so l would rather tend to think the land on those farms will keep working for those families "forever"as it has the past 100 years.
As for that Pit,l know there was sizable opposition to its location but how long the farm was owned and what type of profitable soil it was ?? lets face it there are a lot of farmers that would love to discover a good gravel deposit on their land, because the land isn't any good start with.
Just because you can develop a gravel pit for lots of $$$$$ doesn't necessarily make it ethically correct vs food production. One could also say then that development land for houses makes more $$$$$$ than farming it, so it also is ethically correct.
Every one has to live some where . Cities will continue to grow . I know OFA and others say to protect farm land . Well that does nothing for increasing the price of land or what a farmer gets paid for his goods .
Sure some politicians and groups say cities must grow up and not out . These are the same ones that say they can do nothing because the liberals have a majority so what good are they !
Gravel can't be replaced in cement with some thing else at least not as of yet but some day maybe .
The last crop to be planted on farm land is houses . Likely the most profitable crop too !
Please get your priorities straight! Everyone knows the grocery stores are full every week, so build priorities in the GTA area trump long term food needs every time. Until their is a food shortage in the grocery store and there is a chaos moment, why would any political party react to the food or gravel debate?
Exactly, people tend to live for the minute.There are a select few that look ahead but mostly its because that's their job.
I get into arguments with our city relatives over the A&W and their new "hormone" and "antibiotic's" free meals.I try to tell them A&W imports most of that meat due to shortages in Canada.The relatives shake it off like it doesn't matter and then go on to applaud the local food markets that they like visiting.Their Hypocrisy is mind boggling.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of directors have wind or solar projects
Would not make a difference since any with an interest should have declared a conflict of interest . As should any one who was part of a group who was pushing for the GEA .
More interesting would be .... were the directors given the proper or all of the information about Greed Energy to be able to make an informed decision . Were representatives holding back pertinent/important information ? Were representatives sworn to secrecy ?!! Just who were they representing in closed door secret meetings ?
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