‘It’s like David and Goliath’: Doug Ford’s new highways will fuel demand for gravel from GTA quarries. Local residents are fighting the spread of the mines

Communities around the GTA fear they will bear the brunt of the impact of a growing demand for aggregate caused by infrastructure projects.

thestar.com
Noor Javed
Feb. 25, 2022

Every day for the past 35 years, Sue Godfrey has tried to forget that she lives a stone’s throw from an open-pit mine.

But on most days, she’s reminded by the thundering of hundreds of trucks that go in and out of the 218-hectare Burlington Nelson Quarry atop the Mount Nemo plateau, taking out limestone and bringing in fill.

Occasionally, it’s from the blasts that put cracks in the walls and cause her pictures to fall when the machines go deeper into the ground to extract stone a few hundred metres from her home -- followed by the constant worry that the mine may one day affect her drinking water.

And now, just as the life of the nearly 70-year-old quarry is coming to an end, the company has applied for a 78-hectare expansion on the environmentally rich land just north of Burlington deemed a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve to keep the operation running for decades longer.

“When does it stop?” said Godfrey. “There are species of animals and plants that are endangered here. It’s not just about the quarry, it’s about protecting this biosphere for generations to come.”

The province’s plans to build two contentious highways, more than a million homes in the next 10 years and other infrastructure projects will increase the need for aggregate -- the sand, stone and gravel extracted from under the earth’s surface. It’s this demand that has given a sense of urgency to a push by environmentalists, community groups and municipal leaders for more transparency and oversight from the province.

Approximately 70 per cent of Ontario municipalities have at least one mine, yet critics say the government has not done enough to implement necessary checks and balances to protect nearby communities. Instead, the Doug Ford government has opted to streamline regulations, they say, making it easier for companies to operate and expand mines with fewer protections for endangered species, environmentally sensitive lands and local drinking water.

“The government came into power with a commitment to give the aggregate companies whatever they wanted,” said Tim Gray, executive director with eco-group Environmental Defence. “The pendulum has now switched in favour of a carte blanche for the industry to site these things, operate them and walk away from them, in a way that has very little oversight.”

It’s a concern of both municipalities and environmental groups, who say the changes to the rules and laws around aggregate mines are worrying. Among the most troubling are those that restrict the use of municipal bylaws to prevent aggregate operations from going beneath the water table, and changes to endangered species legislation that allow mines to operate in protected habitat areas by simply paying into a fund.

On its website, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario posted an update last month saying there were “ongoing concerns” among its members about how the regulatory changes could put ground water -- and municipal politicians -- at risk.

“We first raised the question with the province about why they were allowing companies to go below the aquifer. We then said that if it becomes polluted, council members are responsible, so we need indemnification,” said Jamie McGarvey, mayor of Parry Sound and president of AMO, which represents the province’s 444 municipalities.

“We raised that concern with the province ... but they didn’t really do anything about it.”

Equally as concerning, critics say, are new changes to the Endangered Species Act, which come into effect in April. Included is a loophole allowing companies to pay into “Species at Risk Conservation Fund” if their development -- including mines -- impact six species including the bobolink, barn swallow and the Blanding’s turtle, instead of having to having to find ways to mitigate impact on their habitat.

Aerial photos of the Nelson Aggregate quarry on Mount Nemo in 2021. If the expansion of the quarry is approved, the company says it plans to slowly give the land back to the municipality to build a 1,000-acre park.

According to the province, this approach would “shorten timelines, reduce burden and provide cost certainty for businesses.”

“Rather than having to undertake on-the-ground actions to compensate for damage done, those businesses will be able to pay into the fund and then wash their hands of any further responsibility,” environmental groups such as the David Suzuki Foundation, and Ontario Nature wrote in a press release in December.

For example, a highly dense habitat for the endangered Blanding’s Turtle in the Township of the North Shore near Sudbury could be destroyed if a proposed mine -- currently awaiting provincial decision -- is approved.

The Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry says its regulations have allowed it to manage impacts to the community, maintain environmental protections and reduce “unnecessary burden on the industry.”

But activists say the greater burden is on residents who live near aggregate mines.

“It’s not a benign activity,” said Graham Flint, the co-chair of the newly formed Reform Gravel Mining Coalition, which has support from dozens of communities across the province. There are 5,900 pits and quarries in Ontario.

“The landscape looks nothing like it did when they are done with it ... vegetative matter is stripped ... and then the activity is blasting if it’s a quarry,” he said. “To a community, it’s a large, open-air industrial operation.”

The coalition launched in January, amid frustration that years of progress had stalled under the current government. Under the Liberals, advocates worked with industry to create a voluntary certification program for companies who responsibly sourced aggregate materials.

But when the Ford government was elected in 2018, the program was abandoned by companies “who felt they could get whatever they wanted under the new government,” said Gray.

The coalition is calling for a temporary moratorium on new gravel licences, saying its analysis of publicly available data shows that the province has licensed annual extraction limits 13 times more than the amount of gravel used every year, amounting to 2 billion tonnes.

“We have more than enough gravel licences on the books,” said Flint, who says the group is asking for an independent audit of supply, followed by a consultation process that includes First Nations, affected communities, independent experts, and scientists and industry members to assess how to move forward

“We need to put a stop to it until we can assess if there is a real need for more.”

He says part of the problem is that provincial policy allows aggregate operators to ask for new licences without having to show if there is even a need for them.

In early February, the municipality of Halton Hills, which has at least 10 mines, unanimously passed a motion in support of a temporary moratorium and called for “a new path forward for gravel mining.”

“All it seems you have to do today is buy a hundred acres of land, hire some consultants and next thing you know you’ve applied for a quarry. They are popping up all over Ontario,” said Halton Hills Mayor Rick Bonnette. “They should have to prove there is a need before getting the green light to go ahead.”

The province says that an average of 161 million tonnes is extracted annually in Ontario and demand will only increase.

“Over the next 20 years, Ontario will add millions of residents, and we will continue to need responsibly sourced aggregates to build critical infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads and subway tunnels, which help support our growing communities,” said Curtis Lindsay, spokesperson for MNRF Minister Greg Rickford.

 

Part of that increased demand, environmental groups say, is due to the province’s pledge to build the 59-km Highway 413, which will connect Halton Region to Vaughan, passing through Caledon, and the 16-km Bradford Bypass in York Region.

Roads and transportation infrastructure are the greatest consumers of aggregate, with one kilometre of six-lane road requiring 51,800 tonnes of aggregate, or 2,590 truckloads.

Because provincial legislation requires mines to be “made available as close to markets as possible,” most aggregate used for the new roadways will be sourced from existing or new mines in or around the GTA, said Flint.

Research done by the coalition looking at all current mines within a 50-km radius of the projected highways found that 40 per cent are within the protected Greenbelt, in communities such as Caledon, Halton Hills, Simcoe County, Uxbridge and Wellington County.

Greenbelt legislation permits mines on the “protected countryside” lands as long as the applicant can prove that “key natural heritage features ... will be maintained before, during and after extraction” or explain how they will replace features that will be lost.

The industry says that by being close to market, companies reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from trucks when they transport the material to the site.

Norm Cheesman, executive director of the Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association (OSSGA) says the industry is already heavily regulated and it “takes years and millions of dollars for a supplier to get a new quarry licensed.”

Cheesman said the calls for a moratorium are “short-sighted, selfish thinking.”

He said 77 new licences were issued in the past five years. He added that the aggregate industry has approximately 10 years of close to market reserves remaining. But, he said, it can “take up to 10 years for new pits and quarries to be licensed -- so we need to be securing abundant supply to ensure we have the full range of products to meet the demand of tomorrow.”

It’s the 10-year timeline that worries Godfrey on Mount Nemo. She says unlike mining companies, neither communities nor municipalities have unlimited resources or time to keep fighting.

“It’s like David and Goliath. We are little minions, and they have endless and deep pockets,” said Godfrey, who was told when she moved in that the quarry was near its end and would eventually become a park. “It’s very tiresome, and residents get fatigued. And that’s what they are counting on.”

The community’s fight began in 2004, when the quarry sought an expansion on the land classified as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Nearby residents spent more than $1 million on the battle, with the city of Burlington also contributing $2 million.

Nelson Aggregate’s previous application was denied by the Ontario Consolidated Hearings Board in 2012 after it determined that the mine would encroach on the habitat of the endangered Jefferson salamander.

This time around, the company says it is seeking a 78-hectare expansion on an adjoining golf course and on a property south of the existing mine, with plans to extract 2 million tonnes of aggregate annually.

It says its expansion avoids the salamander habitat.

“We spent eight years fighting it, and now it’s back to square one,” said Godfrey.

Kevin Powers, a spokesman for Nelson Aggregates, said the mine extracts a rare high-quality limestone called dolostone, used for condos and bridges, which is in high demand.

Powers said that without an expansion, there’s about 50 years of extraction left, at a “much-diminished capacity.” He said the nature of the licence also allows Nelson to explore underground mining.

He said during the 70-year life of the mine, they have never had a “formal complaint” showing their operations have impacted water quality of wells in the area, or damaged people’s homes.

If the expansion is approved, the company plans to slowly give the land back to the municipality to build a 1,000-acre park, said Powers.

The quarry application, currently under review, will ultimately require the Niagara Escarpment Commission, the city of Burlington, and Halton Region to approve the zoning on the land, while the Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources will decide whether to issue the licence.

Signs along Number 2 Sideroad, north of Burlington, for zoning amendments to the city's official plan. Nelson Aggregate has applied for a 78-hectare expansion to its Mount Nemo quarry.

Given the competing interests, it’s likely to end up back at the Ontario Lands Tribunal for a final decision, local politicians say.

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward says so far, city staff have identified several serious concerns with the Nelson application, including loss of farmland, the effect on provincially significant wetlands and wildlife habitat, and the impact on human health and air quality.

But there’s also a sense that the endangered species such as the salamander and bobolink -- which prevented the expansion last time -- are now less significant due to changes to the legislation.

“It seems like much less of a priority,” said Godfrey. “Protecting endangered species has been dropped as a concern, and it’s really too bad.”

But on a broader level, Ward, who is also a member of the Top Aggregate Producing Municipalities in Ontario (TAPMO), says instead of simply issuing licences, “the question should be asked about what’s happened with existing licences -- how many are active, how many are dormant and how much aggregate is left?”

“It’s self-reported by the industry right now. At the very least, we need a serious objective audit of what’s happening out there. You can’t make decisions with incomplete information.”

Local Burlington ward councillor Rory Nisan says any decision must be made with new realities in mind.

“Given the climate change crisis, people are expecting a change in behaviour from the municipalities,” he said. “When people see this application come forward on Niagara Escarpment land, where we have rich biodiversity ... they ask how it could be possible to have an expansion, in 2022, on this land.

“And it’s a fair question.”

Adding up aggregate

On average, approximately 164 million tonnes of aggregate are used in Ontario each year. That’s about 12 tonnes per person.

One kilometre of a six-lane road uses 51,800 tonnes of aggregate, or 2,590 truckloads.

One kilometre of a subway needs 91,200 tonnes of aggregate, or 4,560 truckloads.

The GTA consumes more than 50 million tonnes of aggregate annually, and demand is growing.

The 16-km Bradford Bypass will require 28,512 truckloads or aggregate to build.

The 59-km 413 will require 103,840 truckloads to build.