Please accept the following…

Please accept the following addendum to the Region of Waterloo’s submission dated November 1, 2019 (i.e., Comment ID 35838) regarding the government’s proposed changes to the ARA.

In our original submission, the Region outlined its support in principle for the Province’s proposal to establish a more robust application process for aggregate operators proposing to amend their site plan to lower the depth of extraction below the water table. We indicated that this enhanced process could potentially achieve the same outcomes sought through municipal zoning by-laws. This comment was based on a summary description of the proposed changes to the ARA posted on the ERO earlier in September.

On October 28, 2019, the Province released additional details regarding its proposed enhancements to the application process. These changes are outlined in a broader omnibus bill (i.e., Bill 132, Better for People, Smarter for Business Act, 2019) that affects the ARA and several other Provincial statutes.

Based on the changes outlined in Schedule 16 of Bill 132, the proposed application process would establish a new mandatory notification process and give municipalities and others an opportunity to officially object to an application to extract below the water table to the MNRF. While we support this change, the new process would not give municipalities or others the right to appeal the application to the LPAT, if their concerns were not satisfactorily addressed by the applicant. Any such concerns could only be referred to the LPAT by the Minister, and the Minister would have the discretion to limit the scope of the hearing to only those matters specified in the referral.

In the absence of any appeal rights, municipalities would have no recourse if the Minister disagreed with a municipality’s concerns regarding source water protection and extraction below the water table. In our view, the proposed amendments to the ARA outlined in Schedule 16 of Bill 132 are therefore not adequate and do not fully address the concerns outlined in our original submission.

As a result, please delete the second recommendation in our submission of November 1 and replace it with the following new one:

Recommendation: The Province should proceed to implement a more robust application process for an aggregate operator wishing to amend their site plan to lower the depth of extraction from above the water table to below the water table, but modify it so that the new process would:

1) give municipalities and others the ability to appeal the Minister’s decision on the application to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, if their concerns regarding source water protection are not fully addressed by the applicant; and

2) also apply to situations where:

i) an existing above-water-table operation applies for permission to extend extraction below 1.5 metres above the water table; or

ii) an existing below-water-table operation applies for permission to extract deeper underground and penetrate the aquitard overlying a municipal aquifer.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important initiative. Please contact this office if you have any questions, or require additional information.