Please accept these comments…

Please accept these comments as Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust’s (ORMLT) submission on the proposed regulation for a streamlined environmental assessment process for the Ministry of Transportation’s GTA West Transportation Corridor project.

ORMLT has serious concerns with the proposal to exempt the GTA West highway from a full and thorough environmental assessment, and instead move to a streamlined assessment. A new highway of this size will bring significant impacts to crucial environmental features like rivers, wetlands, forests, and thousands of hectares of prime agricultural lands including about 1000 hectares in the Greenbelt. It will also create air pollution affecting nearby residents and increase greenhouse gas emissions, and bring little benefit to commuters at a massive cost to taxpayers. We join Environmental Defence and other organizations and individuals recommend that the proposed regulation to shorten the environmental assessment process be withdrawn.

This highway requires a thorough and complete environmental assessment to determine its true impacts. It is irresponsible to proceed with “early works” before the environmental assessment is complete.

The highway will destroy important green spaces and prime farmland.
The corridor needed for the GTA West highway would be 170m wide and about 50km long. It would cut through the Greenbelt in Vaughan and across the Whitebelt in Caledon. The highway would have massive impacts on natural areas such as rivers, valley lands, wetlands, conservation areas and forested areas, including approximately 85 water crossings, and prime agricultural lands, including about 1000 hectares in the Greenbelt in Vaughan. It would also result in environmental damage in these areas from road salt and stormwater runoff into sensitive ecosystems.
The proposed streamlined EA process would allow construction to start with ‘early works’ like bridges and utility relocations before completion of the draft Environmental Impact Assessment Report. These proposed early works like bridges would be constructed where the highway crosses some of the most sensitive areas along the route like streams, rivers, and other important natural features. These sensitive areas are exactly the types of environments that need a full and thorough environmental assessment. Starting construction before the impacts are fully known negates much of the value of an environmental assessment.

In summary, a 400-series highway through important green spaces is not the kind of project that should be exempted from key parts of an environmental assessment. We request that the Ministry of Transportation not proceed with the proposal to streamline the environmental assessment process for this project.