‘There will no longer be any wetlands left’: Conservation agencies warn new provincial regulations could wipe out critical development protections

Hamilton and Niagara agencies sound alarm over proposed legislative changes under study at Queen’s Park

Thestar.com
Nov. 2, 2022
Grant LaFleche
Matthew Van Dongen

A conservation authority responsible for lands in Hamilton and Niagara says proposed changes to provincial legislation could result in the demise of all of its protected wetlands.

In documents obtained by The Spectator, the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority warns a proposed new wetland evaluation system would result in 70 per cent of “provincially significant” wetlands in its watershed losing the status that gives it stronger protection from development.

That change alone would contribute to an “extremely drastic reduction” in local wetlands, said the Oct. 30 memo to senior staff at the agency responsible for a watershed spanning Niagara and parts of Hamilton.

But combined with other housing-related planning changes now contemplated by the Tory government, “it is highly likely that there will no longer be any wetlands left within the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority’s watershed.”

The NPCA’s chief administrative officer said stripping away protections from significant wetlands can have “unintended consequences.”

“We have to protect what we have for future generations,” said Chandra Sharma in an interview. “We need affordable housing for the future, yes, but we also need to protect the environment and one should not be done at the expense of the other.”

Other Hamilton-area conservation authorities and board members are also expressing concerns about the wetland evaluation changes.

Halton Conservation, for example, said 95 per cent of its provincially significant wetlands, more than 6,700 hectares, may need to be “re-evaluated” -- and those that lose protected status could be “lost from the landscape.”

The Hamilton Conservation Authority is still working to understand how wetlands in its watershed will “score” under the proposed new provincial evaluation system, said director of watershed planning Scott Peck. “But chances are we are going to lose wetlands that are designated as provincially significant.”

The Spectator has reached out with questions to the Ministry of Natural Resources but has not yet received a response.

Former Ministry of Natural Resources biologist and current environmental consultant Anne Yagi said the road the province is suggesting will turn back the clock on wetland protections 40 years.

“It’s bad. It’s just really bad,” she said. “Once these wetlands are gone, they are gone.”

Wetlands are considered important for a host of reasons, including flood control, groundwater recharge and filtration of pollutants. They’re also essential habitat for plants and animals, including many at-risk species.

On the Stoney Creek Mountain, the Hamilton Conservation Authority has spent $7 million and counting to buy land and build new engineered wetlands in the hopes of alleviating chronic flooding downstream.

Given that ongoing effort, it would be “misguided and short-sighted” for the province to make development easier in the remaining natural wetlands in Hamilton, said Coun. Brad Clark, who sits on the boards of both the Hamilton and Niagara watershed agencies.

The new legislation governing conservation authorities in Ontario, including the wetlands evaluation system, has been through two readings at Queen’s Park and is now before a standing committee for study and review. Conservation authorities -- individually and collectively under the umbrella of Conservation Ontario -- are submitting comments and concerns to the government this month, said the NPCA’s Sharma.

“There is 70 years of experience to be found in the conservation authorities that municipalities rely on and that is really important,” said Sharma.

Yagi said the current provincial wetland evaluation system does have problems. Often it affords near ironclad protection for unimportant wetlands -- including those chock-full of invasive plant species -- while not doing enough to preserve those critically important wetlands.

She said some development is possible in and around some wetlands with the right remediation and preservation plans, but that “it is nearly impossible do to that.

“It is really hard and unfair because there isn’t a science being applied to it,” Yagi said. “You’re just told no.”

A science-based reassessment of the evaluation process is needed, in Ontario, she said -- but it cannot favour development as a mere matter of principle.

Many of the wetlands in Niagara and Hamilton are “complexes” -- chains of small wetlands sometimes connected to large, unbroken significant wetland areas.

The NPCA memo says, of the 170 wetlands in its jurisdiction, 135 of them are complexes and 80 per cent of them would no longer be considered wetlands at all under the proposed changes to the evaluation system.

Of the 95 officially designated provincially significant wetlands, 67 of them are complexes and all of those are habitats for at-risk species.

The proposed rules would strip protections from all of those complexes, the memo says. Similarly, the vast majority of 30 provincially significant wetlands in Halton are also complexes.

Yagi said sometimes these smaller wetlands become critical habitats and hibernation locations for at-risk and endangered species. In other cases, though, they don’t play a significant ecological role. But that can only be determined on a case-by-case basis, she said.

In Hamilton, the number and quality of wetlands vary significantly.

The headwater areas of important watercourses like Spencer Creek -- which make up part of the well-known Beverly Swamp -- have a relatively high concentration of wetland coverage. By comparison, the watersheds linked to Red Hill Creek in the east end have around one per cent wetland cover.

While she is concerned about the changes to the evaluation system, Yagi noted there are additional barriers to developing some wetlands in provincial and federal laws around endangered species. The Greenbelt might also provide a layer of protection.