Watershed protection this amazing needs to stand

Ontario’s Lake Simcoe Protection Act and Plan represents the best watershed policy in Canada. It’s a model so good it’s been replicated in Ontario’s Great Lakes Protection Act. The Lake Simcoe experience is leading the way for reducing stormwater impacts in a high urban growth context, using low impact development techniques, and adaptive watershed management. As global climate change impacts grow, algae blooms and flooding will get worse in many waterbodies; Lake Simcoe’s Protection Plan offers a model for reducing nutrients and contaminants and protecting and restoring the watershed’s flood-absorbing wetlands and forests. It’s a hard-fought model worthy of protection.

But the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition is concerned that the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan (LSPP) could be weakened in 2021, and that’s why we are asking water protectors across Ontario and Canada to help us Protect Our Plan.

The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan is up for statutory review by the Province of Ontario; the public consultation period ends March 3^rd, 2021, and the province says that by the summer, amendments to the Plan will be made.

The Coalition and its 26 member groups are campaigning to Protect Our Plan, urging the Province to leave the Plan’s targets and objectives alone, and focus on the Plan’s implementation.

Protect Our Plan Priorities in brief:

Improve water quality by reducing Phosphorus loads to the lake, to 44 tonnes per year, as soon as possible, from urban and agricultural areas, and from aggregate and construction sites;
Support a healthy environment around the lake and reduce flooding impacts by protecting 40% of the watershed area’s forests and wetlands;

If enough people support excellent watershed protection, it will be possible to raise the bar for watershed health in Ontario. Groups and organisations can support strong watershed protection by signing onto our Lake Simcoe Protection Plan review priorities, and individuals can sign our petition and / or use our template to send a letter to their MPP here: https://rescuelakesimcoe.org/take-action-2/

Lake Simcoe is an hour’s drive north of Toronto, and its watershed population of nearly 500,000 includes Barrie, Orillia, Bradford, Newmarket, Orillia, Sutton and Beaverton. The watershed / drainage basin is 3,400 square kilometres, about five times the size of the lake itself, and is between the GTA’s Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt, and “cottage country” to the north. The watershed is under intense development pressure, with its population is projected to double by 2051. See maps here.

It’s practically impossible to imagine today that the Lake Simcoe Protection Act received UNANIMOUS ALL PARTY SUPPORT a short thirteen years ago at Queen’s Park. The largely Conservative voter base around the lake cares about protecting our water and a quality natural environment. Protecting the environment is not a partisan issue at the local level. That’s why we are reaching out to people of all stripes to join us in Protecting Our Plan.

Ice fishermen and women love Lake Simcoe too. They need it to stay healthy and clean to support the watershed’s $420 million sustainable recreation sector.

Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop, Simcoe North, at Queen’s Park in 2006, introducing Lake Simcoe Protection Act as a Private Members Bill, with heads of Environmental Defence, Ontario Nature, and Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition.

The Lake Simcoe Protection Act was the brainchild of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition’s founding Chair (and Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature Board member), progressive developer Bobby Eisenberg; and environmental lawyer David Donnelly, who was working for citizens protecting the environment in Oro-Medonte (Simcoe County) at the time. Supporting his constituents, Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North) introduced what became the Lake Simcoe Protection Act as a private member’s bill as a member of the opposition at Queen’s Park. Two years later, Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government introduced and passed the legislation, but Dunlop’s lead made protecting Lake Simcoe a non-partisan issue. Will it remain so?

But while both the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada pledge to protect Lake Simcoe, the threats keep coming. Changes to growth planning rules in Ontario, a proposed highway across a sensitive wetland and wildlife area of the Holland Marsh, and the Minister’s Zoning Order, (MZO) requested for the gigantic Orbit development in Innisfil all highlight the challenges of accommodating growth while protecting the environment.

What happens at Lake Simcoe is a bellweather for our ability to protect water quality in urbanizing areas. Let’s keep the protections at Lake Simcoe strong so other areas can catch up. Take action before April 2021 to defend best-in-class environmental watershed policy.

Lake Simcoe seen from the site of the proposed Bradford Bypass / Holland Marsh Highway, looking north east towards Cooks Bay and Georgina. Photo Credit Jeff Laidlaw.

Explainer video: What is the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan? https://rescuelakesimcoe.org/

More on the history of the LSPP https://rescuelakesimcoe.org/2018/12/08/history-of-the-lake-simcoe-protection-plan-vision-leadership-and-listening/

Aggregate extraction in the home of endangered species? What this means for Lake Simcoe

There are over 27,000ha of potential aggregate resources (sand, stone and gravel) in Simcoe County.[i] Last year the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition analysed how well protected from development our natural features are, and found that only 14% of Simcoe County’s landscape is well protected, and of this, 11% sits atop aggregate resources.[ii]

As the province continues to push for more aggregate development, the health of communities and ecosystems are at risk. Increased atmospheric phosphorous, changes to water regimes, complaints of noise and dust due to blasting, traffic related to haulage, and impacts to the watershed’s forests and wetlands (and their wild inhabitants) are just a few concerns relevant to the Simcoe watershed.

The Provincial Policy Statement (2020) (PPS) sets out the ways in which natural features, such as aggregates, are to be managed. Under the PPS aggregate resources are afforded long-term protection in ways that other natural features are not. Particularly concerning is section 2.5.2.1, which states that “[a]s much of the mineral aggregate resources as is realistically possible shall be made available as close to markets as possible” and that demonstration of need or demand/supply analyses are not required. This directive is almost verbatim included in the County of Simcoe Official Plan.[iii] There is clear danger in assuming constant demand for which constant supply must be made available, as it leaves much of the province, especially the GTA, at risk of unfettered extraction.

Working in tandem with the PPS, the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe[iv] guides where and how development activities should take place. The Growth Plan is currently under review. Through Amendment 1 of the Growth Plan, the province is seeking to “make it easier to establish mineral aggregate operations closer to market.” To do so, changes would permit new aggregate operations in Natural Heritage Systems (except the Greenbelt), while removing prohibitions on aggregate operations from the habitat of endangered and threatened species within the Natural Heritage System.[v] Amendment 1 is currently open for comment on the Environmental Registry (ERO-019-1680) until July 31, 2020.

What stands in the way of rampant extraction? The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan (LSPP)[vi], is a bold policy that limits the impacts of development activities, including aggregate extraction on the Lake Simcoe watershed. What makes the LSPP particularly powerful is that in case of conflict between it and other provincial policies, “the provision that gives the greatest protection to the ecological health of the Lake Simcoe watershed prevails.” In fact, the LSPP is very strict against permitting new aggregate operations in specific key heritage and key hydrologic features.[vii]

The provincial government announced that they would begin a statutory review of the LSPP this fall. We need to ensure that the Plan is strengthened and implemented in ways that will protect the health of Lake Simcoe and its watershed for the long term.

Dena Farsad, PhD (ABD)

July 24, 2020

[i] In 2013, the Ontario Geological Survey produced the Aggregate Resources Inventory Paper 188 which outlines potential quantity and quality of aggregate resources in the County of Simcoe. AIRP 188 identifies 2404 ha of primary resources (totalling 283.7 million tonnes) and 27,503 ha of possible bedrock-derived aggregates (totalling 10,928 million tonnes) within the boundary of Simcoe County.

[ii] See the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s Pits and Quarries online GIS mapping application to get a sense of the number and location of pits and quarries currently within the Lake Simcoe watershed.

[iii] See for example, section 3.3.1.5 and section 4.4.2 of the Simcoe County OP.

[iv] In Ontario, land-use planning happens under the guidance of the Planning Act, which establishes planning goals and processes, and sets out roles and responsibilities of municipal and regional governments. Section 3 of the Actmandates the establishment of the PPS. All regions and municipalities in Ontario must adhere to the policies set out in the PPS while developing regional and municipal official plans.

[v] In many ways, this is the nail in the coffin for endangered and threatened species as the Endangered Species Act, 2007 has already been significantly weakened under Schedule 5 of Bill 108 (More Homes, More Choice Act, 2019).

[vi] The Plan is given legislative authority via the Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008.

[vii] Including significant wetlands, significant habitat of endangered species and threatened species, and significant woodlands.

Take action!

Take action until July 31st, 2020 at https://act.environmentaldefence.ca/page/62895/action/1?ea.tracking.id=action and / or make comments on the province’s Environmental Registry of Ontario site here https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1680Or email growthplanning@ontario.ca directly.

Please include something like this in your comments: Ontario’s proposed changes to growth, planning, and allowing aggregates in habitats of endangered species would be bad for Lake Simcoe’s water quality if enacted. I am very concerned about these and other proposed changes, allowing unfettered, and unneeded greenfield development across southern Ontario at the cost of farmland and natural heritage.

Re. ERO 019-1679, the proposed changes to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and ERO 019-1680, the Lands Needs Assessment Methodology.