PECFN Comment on Proposed…

PECFN Comment on Proposed Updates to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System (OWES) re: ERO 019-6160

The purpose of this comment is to respectfully request that the government reverse its plan to overhaul the OWES. These changes will have significant and potentially disastrous environmental, societal and economic ramifications in Prince Edward County.

(1) The government is proposing to:
▪ Eliminate wetlands that provide reproductive habitat for an Endangered or Threatened species from the scoring system. No points allotted for Endangered or Threatened species under this section (i.e. OWES section 4.1.2.1 to be deleted);

▪ Eliminate wetlands that provide Migration, Feeding or Hibernation Habitat for an Endangered or Threatened Species from the scoring system. No points allotted for Endangered or Threatened species under this section (i.e. OWES section 4.1.2.2 to be deleted);

▪ Eliminate points for “Endangered” and “Threatened” species.

PECFN Comment
It is important to understand that virtually every Provincially Significant Wetland in Prince Edward County will lose the high protection afforded by the PSW designation if these changes go through. They will lose their designation because the reasons they were rated as PSWs in the first place will no longer apply. To be specific, the OWES would no longer allot points to wetlands that provide reproductive habitat or migration, feeding and/or hibernation habitat for Threatened and Endangered Species.

It may help you to understand how disastrous it would be to have the PSW status removed. The County is an island separated from the mainland of Ontario by the Bay of Quinte. It is covered with wetlands, large and small. Data we have obtained from 2012 indicates that about 11,176 hectares of wetlands in the County had been evaluated by the MNRF and about 10,000 hectares of these wetlands were provincially significant. This data also indicates that there were 24 PSWs in the County in 2012. Some PSWs have been added since then including Slab Creek PSW and Lost Lake PSW, which received its designation earlier this year. Lost Lake PSW received this designation due to the presence of reproductive habitat for Least Bittern (Threatened) and Migration and/or Feeding Habitat for Blanding’s Turtle (Threatened) and Barn Swallow (Threatened).

Based on these proposed changes, Lost Lake PSW and all the other PSWs in the County that were designated for similar reasons would be down-graded from PSWs to regionally and/or locally significant wetlands under the new scoring system that the OWES would be using.

As noted, as well as providing wildlife habitat, the County’s provincially significant wetlands provide specialized habitat for about 10 Species at Risk birds, 30 Species at Risk reptiles and amphibians; and 36 Species at Risk plants, insects, fish and mammals. It is well known that wetland protection is closely tied with the protection of Threatened and Endangered Species. This is because protecting wetlands has always had the added benefit of protecting their habitat. In other words, when development is prohibited within 120 metres of a PSW these lands are utilized by wildlife to carry out their life cycles, in their providing breeding, nesting, feeding, hibernation and migratory habitat. Permitting development within120 metres of a previously-protected PSW will lead to habitat loss and degradation. Development will also cause fragmentation, for example almost all new residential, commercial and industrial developments require the construction of new access roads.

(2) The government is proposing to:
▪ Permanently remove the OWES from the Provincial Policy Statement which mandates the conservation of wetlands that are considered provincially significant;

PECFN Comment
We note that the following section has been stricken from the OWES manual:

[T]he wetland evaluation system serves as an essential cornerstone of wetland policies of the Provincial Policy Statement, authorized under Section 3 of the Planning Act. As well, the evaluation system may prove of value in identifying nationally and internationally important wetland features.

If this change goes through the OWES will no longer inform wetland policies in this Province. But if the OWES will no longer inform wetland policies, then what will? Striking the OWES from the PPS will leave a gap that cannot be filled. The system for identifying wetlands, for evaluating (and valuing) wetlands and for creating policies to protect wetlands, will be broken.

It is outrageous to suggest that policies for wetlands can be created by administrators and bureaucrats without survey data and ground-proofing. The OWES provides critical data about wetlands and information that informs the government about the health and long-term sustainability of wetlands. If this change goes through this data will no longer be collected and analyzed because there will be no one to interpret and oversee the information that would allow for long term planning. All of this data and information will be unavailable for future generations.

If this section is struck out, the result will be a policy that disavows the importance and the value of wetlands and that as such will not allow for the sustainability of wetlands over the long-term. In taking this section out our government is for all intents and purposes saying that wetlands are unimportant, which is false, of course and disingenuous. We urge you to reconsider the direction this type of thinking is taking us in.

What has changed to disavow the importance of wetlands at this time? There could not be a worse time to support a policy when we are in the midst of a climate emergency.
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(3) The government is proposing to:
▪ Eliminate the MNRF’s long-held role of administering the OWES;

PECFN Comment
The OWES provides a standardized method of assessing wetland functions and societal values and enables the Province to rank wetlands relative to one another. In administering the OWES the MNRF is a key part of a system of checks and balances that have been put in place over many years to promote the protection and conservation of wetlands.

Ontario Nature has provided an excellent summary of this change and its ramifications:
MNRF is proposing to remove itself from any involvement in Ontario’s wetland evaluation process, despite the deep and valuable expertise of ministry staff who have overseen the process for decades. No central agency is being assigned to coordinate or approve evaluations or to ensure that information about PSW designation is publicly accessible. Consultation with MNRF will no longer be an option.
It appears that approval authority will be downloaded to municipalities, many of which have little expertise and would no longer be able to consult with conservation authorities (due to proposed Bill 23 amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act). Instead, the onus would be on the wetland evaluator (working in most cases for the development proponent) to inform the municipality and landowners in writing about the outcome of the evaluation or re-evaluation.
MNRF would:
• Be unaware of wetland evaluations and outcomes
• No longer ensure wetland evaluations were accessible to the public through Land Information
Ontario
• Have no authority to intervene on behalf of the public regarding an evaluation of questionable merit

(4) The government is proposing to:
▪ Eliminate the roles and responsibilities of conservation authorities, for example their responsibility to regulate areas around wetlands including provincially significant wetlands (i.e. areas within 120 metres of all PSWs and areas within 30 metres of all other wetlands);

PECFN Comment
The reasoning appears to be that conservation authorities are impediments to developing in wetlands and as such, need to be dismantled. It’s also clearly being stated that there’s no need to regulate areas around wetlands.
Results of this change:
1. Protection for wetlands will lost without a central protection authority
2. Leaving the management of wetlands to developers will cause irreparable harm to Endangered and Threatened species resulting in the extirpation of said species in Ontario

(5) The government is proposing to:
▪ Restrict the use of results of wetland evaluations, i.e., wetland evaluations can no longer be used by conservation authorities to provide technical advice to municipalities or used by the MNRF to manage and conserve fish, wildlife, land and other resources and to inform stewardship and incentive programs;

PECFN Comment
These changes set limits on what conservation authorities and the MNRF can do with the OWES. Conservation authorities cannot provide any technical advice to municipalities that is based on the OWES. The MNRF will not be permitted to use the OWES at all.
Results of these changes:
(1) Protection for wetlands will lost without a central protection authority
(2) Without wetland protection climate change impacts will accelerate uncontrollably
(3) Leaving the management of wetlands to developers will cause irreparable harm to Threatened and Endangered species resulting in the extirpation of said species in Ontario
(4) Preventing municipalities access the environment and wetland specialists will cause the eradication of the wetlands and the species that cohabitate the environment.
(5) Not stating clearly the importance of wetlands will allow the destruction of the natural environment
(6) Not applying direction for the sustainability of wetlands by expertise with the authority to manage the resources will cause the resource to disappear along with the species that require these resources.

(6) The government is proposing to:
▪ Remove “Wetland complexes” (groupings of wetlands that are considered a single contiguous wetland) from the OWES. Evaluators will be permitted to re-score and re-map single wetland units that are part of a previously evaluated wetland complex (with the exception of closely grouped wetlands);

PECFN Comment
The plan to get rid of wetland complexes by breaking them up into “single wetland units” contradicts the government’s own science-based policy, which states that the delineation of the wetland units into individually recognized wetlands would not be an ecologically or a functionally sound process. According to the Natural Heritage Manual (2005),
Many areas of Ontario contain closely spaced wetlands that vary in size from a fraction of a hectare to several hundred hectares. The topography of the landscape in which these wetlands occur, the short distances between some of the wetlands, and the density of wetlands per unit of areal landscape may be so complex that delineation of the wetland units into individually recognized wetlands would not be an ecologically or a functionally sound process. Such groupings of wetlands are referred to as “wetland complexes.” For the purposes of the PPS, the OWES uses various criteria (e.g., distance) to identify and evaluate wetland complexes.

The government has not provided any justification to eliminate wetland complexes even when it is clear that this change will open them up to development.

(7) The following change is being proposed to:
▪ Eliminate MNRF’s involvement in training and approving Evaluators. The MNRF will no longer offer assistance to Evaluators.

PECFN Comment
At the present time the MNRF only recognizes ministry-sanctioned wetland evaluation courses and the Ministry routinely offers training courses in wetland evaluations. Wetland evaluations conducted by individuals trained by other organizations will not be considered by the MNRF. This policy is evidently to provide some reassurance to the public that evaluations of wetlands are consistently applied throughout the province and that only evaluations that meet the OWES standards are accepted for review.
If this change goes through the OWES will effectively be privatized. With no governmental oversight and supervision, evaluators will be at the beck and call of industry.

PECFN Concluding Comment
These changes to the OWES have many ramifications. In one fell swoop these changes remove all of the checks and balances (including the Provincial Policy Statement, Conservation Authorities and the OWES) that are there to protect and preserve wetlands. Although we will still have the OWES it will no longer have any “teeth”, which effectively extinguishes any hope of sustainable management of our wetlands. To the contrary, wetlands will be degraded and destroyed by development.

These changes to the OWES have no basis in science – or in reality. It is well known by now that wetlands “provide a wide variety of ecosystem services that benefit people and the environment including flood control, shoreline stabilization, water purification, filtering of run-off, groundwater recharge and discharge, and recreation, education and tourism opportunities.” The government should be affirming these things in the OWES, not weakening the OWES to the extent that it’s only role is to assist developers and streamline development.

Thank you for taking our comments under consideration.

Regards,
The Prince Edward County Field Naturalists