Sanjay Coelho Ministry of…

Sanjay Coelho
Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks - Environmental Policy Branch
40 St Clair Avenue West, Floor 10, Toronto, ON, M4V1M2
August 6, 2021
Re: Land Use Compatibility Guideline Draft
ERO number: 019-2785, Notice type: Policy, Act: Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990
Posted by Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks

From: Ian G. Sinclair B.E.S, M.A.E.S.
Regional Councillor, Ward 1
Town of Caledon 647-542-0261
“The Guideline would be applied when an approval under the Planning Act is needed where the decision to be made by the planning authority raises one of the following circumstances:
• a new or expanding sensitive land use (e.g. a residential subdivision or condominium) is proposed near an existing or planned major facility
• a new or expanding major facility is proposed near an existing or planned sensitive land use” [From: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-2785]

The draft Major Facilities Guideline preamble quoted above indicates a balanced approach between sensitive land uses and any Major Facilities but the text of the Guidelines exempt new aggregate strip mining proposals from proper review.
Aggregate resource mapping in municipal Official Plans are intended to identify and protect the resources from other competing land uses in rural areas avoiding loss of access to aggregate deposits due to capital intensive and sensitive land uses. The identification of aggregate potential areas has a problematic history. The mapping and associated policies identify potential aggregate deposits [sand, gravel, bedrock, shale, dimension stone] at a low level of confidence in their quality and quality for economic use. The areas are not proven resources. Drilling of a potential aggregate deposit site, core samples collected and analyzed are required to ground truth the deposit’s marketability. The aggregate mapping is only an approximation of the aggregate resource. In addition, the mapping is at a 1:50:000 scale.
The assumption inherent in the aggregate potential mapping policy is that at some undetermined time, an aggregate strip mine will occur inside the mapped resource area. For many of the areas, mining may never occur. There is a fairness problem wherein a Major Facility, a strip mine, is deemed to exist within a mapped area and all other land uses within and adjacent to an identified aggregate resource area are subject to the restrictions contained in the Guidelines. The mapped identification areas are not designated in Official Plans or zoned in Zoning By-laws for extraction. The reason for identification only, is that aggregate strip mining, by its nature, involves the utter destruction of the land and often pumping out of ground waters for decades. Careful hydrogeological, natural heritage, traffic, noise, dust, viewshed, cultural heritage, etc. studies must be conducted in order to determine the conditions on which a mining land use approval may be based. This identification of resource potential and not designation and zoning are unique in addressing land use compatibility under the draft Land Use Compatibility Guidelines. Normally Major Facilities such as airports, highways, railways, sewage treatment plants, landfills, etc. have fixed land use designations and known locations and known adverse effects. Aggregate resources occur where natural processes over millennia produced them.
Aggregate strip mines vary in their adverse effects due to the different types of aggregate mining and processing techniques. Establishing a new aggregate strip mine in the Town of Caledon, for example, will occur in a long settled landscape containing villages, hamlets and multiple rural land uses all constituting sensitive land uses. Existing sensitive land uses will have multiple adverse effects resulting from a new aggregate strip mine and the notions of Minimum Separation Distances and Areas of influence must be considered reflective. If a strip mine exists and new or expanded sensitive land uses are proposed, then those proposals must be tested against the MSD/AOI while a new or expanded strip mine must meet the tests in relation to the existing sensitive land uses. The AOI and MSD go both ways.
Aggregate strip mines are identified in the draft Guidelines Table 1 pg. 23 as Class 3 with an MSD of 1000m with an asterisk directing attention to a note, “AOI and MSD only applies to new or expanding sensitive land use proposals near major facility aggregate operations.” This note seems to exempt new aggregate strip mines from conforming to the tests of AOI and MSD of setbacks and mitigation.
Table 2 pg. 26 describes Class 3 Major Facilities as, “Operations with moderate to significant adverse effects that may be difficult to mitigate. May include larger outdoor operations.”, and an AOI of 1000m. The Class 3 also uses aggregate operations as an example, “Aggregate Operations (in relation to sensitive land use proposals)” with an MSD of 500m. Once again, the caveat “in relation to sensitive land uses” seems to exempt new aggregate strip mines from the tests of MSD and AOI requirements.
Table 3 Characteristics for Classifying Major Facilities, provides direction for the types of adverse effects an aggregate strip mine will incur on sensitive land uses:
Noise: Sound frequently audible off property Class 4-5
Vibration: Ground-born vibration can frequently be perceived off property Class 5
Dust: Point source from conveyors and crushers frequent and occasionally intense Class 3
Dust: High probability of Fugitive Emissions from hundreds of hectares of land stripped, Class 5
Scale of Production: Large production levels and constant heavy truck traffic, Class 5
Outside Storage: Large piles of crushed aggregate often covering 5 ha. or more Class 5
Processes: Multiple, large stockpiles of various grit sizes up to 15m high Class 5
Hours of Operation: Daytime operations only in Caledon Class 1. Some quarries may be 24 hour in the Province, Class 5.
On-site Movement: Rock trucks, conveyors, articulated loaders equipped with back up beepers and drag line dregers are in constant daytime work, Class 3
Using the Table 3 characteristics against gravel strip mine Major Facilities the mines rate
in the Class 5 category, not Class 3.
A separation distance, AOI or MSD is typically measured as the actual distance between
the property line of a sensitive land use and the property line of a major facility.
Measuring Separation Distances:
“A separation distance, AOI or MSD is typically measured as the actual distance between the property line of a sensitive land use and the property line of a major facility.”
“To determine whether the proposal would result in an existing or planned sensitive land use within the AOI or MSD for a particular facility, the proponent should do the following:
• measure the current separation distance between the property boundary of a proposed sensitive land use or major facility to the property boundary of the existing sensitive land use or major facility; and
• determine whether the separation distance falls within the AOI or MSD.”
These basic guides are welcome. In the Town of Caledon, recent gravel strip mine applications have filed aggressively, placing working pit faces within 30 m of rural hamlets and clusters of residential land uses leading to significant adverse effects. The rules for determining Major Facilities regarding aggregate strip mining must be reflective. If there are existing sensitive land uses in or adjacent to an identified resource area then the rules for measuring AOI or MSD must affect the property proposed for the Major Facility, a strip mine.
The plain reading of Major Facilities Table 3 Characterization discussed above places aggregate strip mining in Class 5, not 3. A severe heavy industrial facility. The onus to prove up their application for a strip mine according to current land use polices, principle of fairness and good planning must be placed firmly on the aggregate industry not of general rural landowners.
Guideline Sections 2,5, 2.6 and 2.7 pp. 30-33, must not be limited to new sensitive land uses in or adjacent to identified, potential aggregate deposits but also to the establishment of new aggregate strip mines in settled rural Ontario municipalities.
Guideline sections, 3 Mitigation, 3.1 At-Source Mitigation, 3.2 Operational Mitigation, 3.3 At-receptor Mitigation, 3.4 Buffers, 3.5 Phasing, and 3.6 Effectiveness and Limitations of Mitigation Measures must not be limited to new sensitive land uses but also proposed new aggregate strip mines.
There is no scarcity of aggregate resources in Ontario. Town of Caledon has over 100 years supply of various types of aggregate inside the current identified aggregate potential resource areas for the entire GTA. Principles of good land use planning and fairness require suitable setbacks and mitigation measures for new aggregate strip mines.