Land Use Compatibility…

Land Use Compatibility Guideline
ERO number
019-2785
Notice type
Policy
Act
Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990
Posted by
Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks
Notice stage
Proposal
Proposal posted
May 4, 2021
Comment period
May 4, 2021 - July 3, 2021 (60 days) Open
Last updated
May 4, 2021
This consultation closes at 11:59 p.m. on:
July 3, 2021
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Proposal summary
We are proposing an updated Land Use Compatibility Guideline to help municipalities and planning authorities plan sensitive land uses and major facilities. This will help to avoid or minimize and mitigate potential adverse effects from odour, noise, dust and other contaminants.
https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-2785
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Share your thoughts on this proposal in the comment box below. You can include links and attachments to support your key points. We will publish all approved comments and supporting material with the decision notice.
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The proposed land use compatibility guideline is dangerous to human health and totally insufficient to mitigate adverse effects.
These guidelines must also apply to diamond drilling rigs and mobile crushing plants and all associated equipment, including but not limited to truck traffic using public and private roadways to deliver products from these works.
In regards to AOI’s and MSD’s, these distances are severely underestimated and have already resulted in adverse effects occurring to sensitive land uses such as private residences.
It is very clear the MECP has learned nothing from public feedback and continues to dismiss public feedback in a demeaning and dehumanizing way.
Even though I fear and fully expect retaliation by the MECP I cannot allow this dangerous guideline to go ahead without being challenged.
The AOI’s and MSD’s are totally inadequate. This is from personal experience after living within a 1-5km distance of an open pit mining operation.
I had lived at this location all my life, the adverse effects started with open pit mining operations which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It was a nice quiet country location, until the open pit operations started. These open pit operations started small and kept growing, the adverse effects kept growing with the size of the operation. These operations built into existing sensitive land uses.
This guideline also must include diamond drilling rigs and all associated operations. Diamond drillings rigs also operated for years within the 5km radius of sensitive land uses. Since they were allowed to operate unopposed, 24/7, they created the same adverse effects as listed below.
The earlier years of the 12 year time frame refer to these diamond drilling rigs and the growing of these open pit operations. During this time reports were verbal to the MOE, police and mines back than and may not have been recorded.
Over an approx. 12 year period, after countless complaints to the MECP, after years of adverse effects, such as loss of/disturbed sleep, severe stress and anxiety, many years of loss of enjoyment of my property and finally, after years of these adverse effects, I was severed from, forced to leave my lifetime home of more than 50 years. The adverse events do not stop after you have left your home, they continue to follow and haunt you, I cannot stop thinking about the injustice that has been done to me, to this very day. Now I live some place else…it is not a home. Its just a place to stay.
Not every night had these adverse events, which was even more disturbing, because you never new when the adverse events above would occur, this does not mean you recover from this loss of sleep the next night, no, this means you have higher than normal anxiety and fear levels because you don’t know when its going to happen again. This affects you every day…every day and night.
The MECP calls all of this pain and suffering “alleged adverse effects”, they will do this to you (the public) also.
All of these adverse noise issues occurred with all windows closed in my home, I could no longer crack open my windows for fresh air because it made the noise issues worse resulting in more adverse disturbed sleep events. I was a prisoner in my own home which had become a torture chamber.
On some nights the primary crusher could be heard breaking rock…ratatatat… ratatatat…over and over again. Haul trucks dumping rock, haul trucks revving engines with heavy loads, dumping rock, bull dozers pushing rock, crunching rock. The noise from the heavy equipment was most severe, the low frequency noise from this equipment is very disturbing, penetrating standard house structures with ease, travelling long distances, not even hearing protection could block out these noises.
I have to note that all the adverse noise events mentioned above have occurred at distances within this 5km range from the source, it is also highly likely that this noise is a disturbance at even greater distances, but I can only report the distances’ that had adverse effects on me.
It is clear from this proposed guideline, that the MECP, has chosen to ignore the years of adverse effects reported by the public in this matter, the empirical data, the evidence given to the MECP, which they are clearly aware of and clearly aware that these adverse effects are still occurring at the time of this posting.
The MECP has in its possession more than 10 years of adverse complaints from the public in regards to 24/7 open pit mining operations.
It is clear that the MECP, chooses to dismiss public feedback above as disposable garbage because none of the information the MECP has received in those adverse reports is even remotely reflected in this guideline.
In this guideline, it does not even mention 24 hour open pit mining operations, it mentions aggregate operations and puts it as a class 3, AOI of 1000m, MSD 500m. This may be appropriate for a gravel pit or a quarry down south, where they are only allowed to operate in daylight hours. I can tell you that I lived within 2km of a portable rock crushing plant and this has the same adverse effects as the open pit operation.
The class 3 to 5 classifications are totally inappropriate and dangerous to human health for a 24 hour open pit mining operation as the adverse complaints given to the MECP over the last 10 years has shown. The MECP has this information in their possession, why did they not use it in making this guideline?
The MECP say they have done this, they must have lost all of my information. Don’t worry I will send it again.
Class 5 does mention continuous movement of products by heavy trucks and rail cars including at night, maybe I should not be so harsh? Still…no the distances are not enough, not enough by far, distances of 5km must be maintained. 10 years of pain and suffering proves this beyond a doubt.
The MECP chooses to complicate matters by providing an AOI and a MSD, why do that? It makes no sense except of a course to provide loop holes to industry.
Based on the adverse events provided by the public, there needs to be a new classification for 24 hr 7 days a week open pit mining operation. It should be classed as class 6 - AOI 5000m – MSD 5000m
All MSD’s in this guideline must be set to the AOI distances. The MSD distances, are a slap in the face of the public and extremely dangerous to human health. Really? 500m…200m, that is nothing…nothing for a separation distance when it comes to noise, its an insult, a danger to public health.
The MSD - If a demonstration of need is shown a company can build within the MSD limit…a demonstration of need?...what a vague statement… what a dangerous statement. If there is a need so great that MSD limit can be ignored, then the company must purchase all sensitive land uses at an increasing value above market value depending on the number of years lived there, at 10% above market value per year of living there, consider it a severance for people being displaced and the loss of their family homes, the loss of their way of life. The displaced people must also be able to purchase another property in kind, without any monetary loss (this includes but is not limited to lawyers fees, land transfer taxes, moving expenses..etc). The monetary loss will also be paid for by the company/person doing the displacing. As mentioned above all MSD distances must equal the AOI distances. Therefore, this requirement also applies to the AOI’s.
I am also aware that adverse events may not affect all the people the same way, as distance increases adverse events will decrease for some of the population, perhaps this is the thinking behind the AOI.
In the event that the MECP keeps the AOI and the MSD, the reality that adverse events will occur to a segment of the population in the AOI, the requirement for the purchase of the family home/property as described will still apply.
Since the meaning of adverse events to human health are subject to personal biases, discrimination, limited knowledge, lack of medical training and understanding and could easily be argued in court for years by wealthy companies, the matter shall be decided simply by a family dr. or qualified medical personal, providing a note that adverse effects have occurred. The company/person will pay for the needed medical expertise to have this examination done, chosen by the people affected. The medical personnel will work in conjunction with the below provided lawyer.
A qualified lawyer chosen by the public, to defend the public interest, will be paid for by the proponent, this lawyer will be part of the development of the Environmental compliance approval and the public consultations and will represent the public interest. This is to balance the playing field. The company has their own lawyers, they work for the company. The MECP has their own lawyers, they work for the best interests of the MECP, not the public.
In reference, the lawyers I spoke to said that defending yourself in court would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years in the courts. You would have to hire your own experts. This is why a qualified lawyer needs to be part of the ECA as described above.
The requirement to hire this lawyer as described above will be a requirement of this guideline.
This guideline does not reflect the adverse events to human health that have occurred and are still occurring, The MECP has all of these adverse events recorded and in their possession.
The MECP say they have done this, they must have lost all of my information. Don’t worry I will send it again.
Another issue is that all a company has to say to avoid making improvements is to say “it is not financially feasible”. They do not have to prove this, they are not accountable for saying this. The company must be accountable to say this, qualified independent verification must be obtained to verify what the company is saying. The company/person will pay for this.
The NPC-300 noise guideline is destructive and harmful to human health. The lowest level of noise at night that the guideline supports is 40db LeqA at night., but they could also choose 45 or 50 db.
I will help the public understand how harmful this is. A quiet night with a subtle breeze and slight leaves rustling is 30db LeqA at night, 40db LeqA of noise allowed by the NPC-300 noise guideline will absolutely destroy the piece and tranquillity of your property, you will hear the industrial noise over the sounds of nature and it will destroy the enjoyment of your property, you will hear this noise generated from km’s away.
The other very important note is that the 40db LeqA from the NPC-300 guideline is averaged over an hour’s time frame. This means that a piece of equipment or other noise source could surge above the 40db requirement to 50 db…60 db…70 db…100 db, but as long as the average over 1 hr is 40db LeqA, this is operating within the NPC-300 guideline. This means you could have a haul truck go by at 80 db every 5..10…15 mins or so, waking you up, disturbing your sleep, but the average is below 40db so the noise limit is within the NPC-300 noise guideline limit. This is absolutely a destructive and harmful concept.
Another issue with the NPC-300 guideline line is that LeqA does not represent lower frequency’s very well. A lot of the heavy equipment produce strong lower frequency disturbances, which the LeqC method is more effective in measuring. The LeqC method must be a requirement as part of your ECA. It must be a requirement as part of this guideline.
Another issue is that mining companies can own vast tracks of land, there is a historic problem of trespassing on these lands, the companies do not take this trespassing seriously, they put up token gates, maybe patrol once a week, or say we only have so much money and cannot afford to stop the trespassing. All of these excuses have been used on me. The result is that disturbances such as ski-doos and dirt bikes ride around on these properties unopposed , these machines are very noisy, can be heard for miles and the company don’t do anything about this. This guideline line must include guidelines that force these companies to address disturbances like this on their properties. Not just token responses as mentioned above.
To the public, do not accept any night time operations that are above 40 LeqC at night. This must be in your ECA.
The publics only choice is to not allow any industrial project under any circumstance’s within 5km of sensitive lands uses.
The MECP has the evidence of the adverse events, change the guideline to reflect the above concerns.
All of my supporting evidence and links is in the attached files.

Had to use google drive for some files because they are to big to attach, these files show distances, environmental conditions, LeqA and LeqC measurements and why this matters, why some nights are noisy and why some nights are not. How the whole noise measurement scenarios were flawed. How noise measurements were never taken with public involvement to confirm if it was a noisy night.

Thank you
the adversely affected
the displaced
the haunted
the forgotten
the suppressed
the discriminated against
the tortured