Michele Doncaster Policy…

Michele Doncaster
Policy Advisor, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Policy Division, Food Safety and Environmental Policy Branch
Land Use Policy Unit
1 Stone Road, Floor 3
Guelph Ontario N1G 4Y2

Re: Comments Regarding:
Draft Agricultural Impact Assessment (AIA) Guidance Document (03/2018)

Dear Ms. Doncaster,

Introduction

Gravel Watch Ontario acts in the interests of residents and communities to protect the health, safety, quality of life of Ontarians and the natural environment in matters that relate to aggregate resources. We are a province-wide coalition of citizens’ groups and individuals.

We thank the Ministry for the focus on ensuring that we appropriately manage our finite and declining agricultural lands within the province and for the work done to date in developing this draft AIA guideline document.

The following comments are made in the interests of GWO members who often live in rural areas of the province where agriculture is a significant economic and social driver.

General Observations

As Gravel Watch Ontario does not represent itself to be informed regarding many of the agricultural issues and concerns touched on by the AIA, we will focus our comments on matters related to aggregates.

We will though take this opportunity to support the submissions made by others such as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). In particular we would echo the comments made by the OFA and others relating to:

- Increasing the clarity of roles to be played by all stakeholders in the AIA processes and deliverable. Interested stakeholders (municipalities, planning authorities, related agencies, etc.) need guidance as to the roles they may have.

- Clearly articulating the level of consultation and engagement with the local agricultural community that would be expected and required for the AIA to be considered valid. An AIA that did not collect, consider, and integrate feedback from the local agricultural community is in our opinion incomplete.

- Providing guidance on engaging Qualitied Persons to ensure that an independent analysis is made. Too often advocates for a proposed development rely on work prepared by other advocates for the same development or even more concerning other documents prepared by the authors themselves to justify the conclusions of impact assessments. AIAs should be prepared through an independent lens, not the lens of advocates for the development.

Aggregate and Agriculture

Aggregate extraction occurs in rural areas where the aggregate deposits exist. Agriculture is a dominate and preferred rural land use by established planning policy. In the case of some sand and gravel deposits, it is often the existence of those aggregate deposits that makes agricultural land productive through the soil drainage they provide. Aggregate extraction is an intrusive industrial process. It impacts the natural environment and the communities that host the activity. Agricultural farm vehicles and aggregate haulage vehicles are often in conflict with each other on rural roads. Fugitive emissions from aggerate extraction such as blast vibrations, equipment noise, dust and other more dangerous air contaminants can impact crops and livestock as well as farmers and their families.

Given this intersection, an Agricultural Impact Assessment should be required for all aggregate extraction proposals on agricultural lands or within established agricultural systems. Aggregate extraction, while often positioned as an interim land use, is a land use that can and often does continue for decades. In many scenarios aggregate operations expand onto new lands once the existing licenced resource is exhausted. The impact of aggregate extraction is long lasting and often multi-generational.

Section Appendix B: Rehabilitation Information and Resources

The draft AIA Guideline Document dedicates 37 pages (pages 74 to 110) or one third of its total size to an appendix dealing with aggregate operation rehabilitation. While the contents of this appendix appear to be reasonable and helpful in regards to rehabilitating aggregate sites, the inclusion of this material in these guidelines is inappropriate. The AIA should be exploring impacts from the establishment and ongoing operation of proposed aggregate sites.

The aggregate industry has a history of wanting to discuss the impact of their operations in terms of a proposed final rehabilitation status. Given the typical multiple decade long aggregate operational timeline, any consideration of a post rehabilitation site is inappropriate when considering the impacts from a new proposed operation. Any impacts the propsed operation may have will have had its affect on the agricultural system long before final rehabilitation is even started. There is also the matter that rehabilitation plans presented during initial licence application processes are routinely not executed in the timeframes advertised and often the form of final rehabilitation changes as the aggregate site develops in ways that are difficult to predict before the first shovel goes into the ground.

It should be clear throughout the AIA guideline document that in regard to aggregate operations what the AIA investigation should be studying is the initial and ongoing impact from the proposed aggregate site on agricultural lands and the agriculture system. Any desirable final rehabilitation goal that may or may not occur decades from now is irrelevant to the purposes of the AIA. The AIA is to inform the current decision-making process. Having rehabilitation content which represents one-third of the total AIA guideline document biases execution of AIA to focus on hypothetical post final rehabilitation scenarios and not the real, immediate and ongoing impact that decades long aggregate operations can have.

Gravel Watch Ontario and its members feel strongly that the material contained in appendix B should be removed from the AIA document and published as a septate document.

Misc. Comments

Section 3.5 Rehabilitation – Mineral Aggregate Resource Extraction within Prime Agricultural Areas while also containing helpful content it seems equally out of place for the purposes of the AIA guidance document.

However, the Mineral Aggregate Extraction material contained in section 3.4 Description of Mitigation Measures is fully appropriate and supported.

Secondary Study Areas: While the draft guidelines are clear that “secondary study areas” should be defined by areas that could be potentially impacted by the proposed development, the document does set the initial recommended radius for aggregate proposals at a distance less than the recommendation for settlement boundary expansion, 1.0 km vs. 1.5 km.

Gravel Watch Ontario is of the opinion that impacts must be studied over the full extent of the impacted area and that the focus be on exploring the entire breath and reach of the potential impacts. Our recommendation is not to provide a “number” that authors of the AIA can use as justification to stop at any particular distance from the source of the potential impacts. This appears to be the guidance provided for infrastructure projects and other non-agricultural uses. At the very least any recommended radius shouldn’t create the impression that aggregate operations seemingly have impacts that radiate less than the typical urban landscape.

Conclusion

Gravel Watch Ontario appreciates the opportunity to add our feedback and perspectives on the draft Agricultural Impact Assessment (AIA) Guideline Document. We thank the government for the opportunity to input into this process and look forward to next steps.

If you should have any questions or would like to discuss our comments in more detail, please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,
Graham Flint
President
Gravel Watch Ontario