Autumn 2012 | Issue No. 85

Newsletter of the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment

ON THE EDGE, ISSN 1491-2740, is published quarterly by the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment (CONE). This newsletter is for CONE members and supporters to keep them informed of issues and events along the Niagara Escarpment, a World Biosphere Reserve.

ON THE EDGE is produced by, and is the property of, CONE. All rights reserved. No article, graphic, or excerpt may be reproduced without the written permission from CONE.

ON THE EDGE is printed by The Printing House Ltd. on Rolland Enviro100 paper by Cascades Inc. This paper uses FSC certified and EcoLogo™ certified, 100% post consumer waste, processed chlorine free, and manufactured using biogas energy.

Read past issues of ON THE EDGE on our website:www.niagaraescarpment.org » Become A Member » Newsletters

CONE is the watchdog of the Niagara Escarpment. We foster its protection and appreciation through public advocacy and member support.

Design by: Josh Gordon, www.joshgordoncreative.com Cover: Jackson’s Cove Lookout, Josh Gordon

Sarah Harmer performs at theGreenbelt Harvest Picnic, Josh Gordon

ContentsON THE EDGE | Autumn 2012

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The View from the Edge

CONE in the Community

An Update from the NEC

The Emergence of Hamilton’s Network of Escarpment Parks

CONE joins forces to Stop the Escarpment Highway

A Win for the Jefferson Salamander

THE VIEW FROM THE EDGEby Robert Patrick, CONE President

The autumn season is a great time of year to explore the wonderful Niagara Escarpment. Its forests and meadows

come alive with a vibrant show of firey colours in the trees and in the blooms. While many escarpment creatures are returning to their wintering habitats or looking for a place to take a long nap, we at CONE are not planning on settling in for a winter slumber any time soon. CONE and Member group, the Grey Association for Better Planning, have continued our fundraising efforts in support of the Shouldice Wetland. We have held two successful fundraising events. In August 38 guests joined us at Coffin Ridge

Boutique Winery and our Walk 4 Wetlands in late September drew a group of local resident hikers. You can read more about these events on page 6. The Aggregate Forum of Ontario (AFO) has entered into negotiations to merge with Socially and Environmentally Responsible Aggregate (SERA). CONE hopes that the two groups coming together will raise the bar of the aggregate industry and create an environmental certification process that will benefit the community as well as the environment. CONE will continue to encourage this green aggregate certification process however it unfolds. CONE submitted comments on proposed changes to the Aggregate Resources Act.Below are just three of CONE’s comments to the Joint Legislative standing Committee reviewing the Aggregate Resources Act:• We have to get away from proponent generated studies and data used for

approvals. The information is not accurate. It is costly for the neighboring public to pay for the needed peer reviews.

• We must have earlier Adaptive Management Plan triggers monitored by an independent third party and Public Advisory Liaison Committees so that intervention will occur quickly. The need for an AMP must be imbedded in revisions to the ARA.

• Sunset clauses must be introduced. Ontario is one of very few jurisdictions that does not impose time lines on closure of an aggregate operation and the surrendering of its license.

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NOTE: Since the Ontario Legislature business was prorogated, all work on this review has ceased and will no longer be considered. It is now a dead file. It would have to be reintroduced by the new Legislature with the same mandate in order to proceed and use the information already presented. CONE partnered with the Headwaters Institute to submit joint comments on the proposed Great Lakes Protection Act and the proposed Implementation policy frame work. It requires more public consultation and strengthening before being enacted. This too has been stopped. CONE commented on the NEC Strategic Plan for 2012 to 2016The Vision Statement does not tell us what the Commission wants nor where it intends to be by 2016. CONE recommended that the NEC embrace technology and use it to open communication with the public through the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter. CONE was present for the NEC Policy meeting on October 17 and discussed in detail two major topics:1. The Niagara Escarpment Plan Review 2015 topics to consider.2. Built form size Considerations for Residential development in the NEP.NEC staff prepared 17 NEP topics to strategize around from notes taken at NEC meetings over the past years of issues that need to be addressed during this 2015 Plan Review. Each of the topics was discussed in great detail and the NEC passed a motion to proceed to address all the topics with a few refinements as discussed. CONE’s President and Vice President will be meeting with the UNESCO World Biosphere Review team on October 31 at the NEC office. Two CONE member groups, POWER and PERL, are slated to have their own meetings with the review team. We are part of the 10 year review of the Niagara Escarpment Designation as a World Biosphere Reserve. CONE is now in the process of planning outreach events and celebrations for 2013. Please continue to support us as we enter our 35th year of protecting and preserving the Niagara Escarpment! Thank you!

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CONE IN THE COMMuNITyby Josh Gordon, CONE Director

In an effort to assist us with our fundraising for the Shouldice wetland in Grey County, CONE hosted two events in partnership with the Grey

Association for Better Planning (GABP). Our first fundraising event was held at Coffin Ridge Boutique Winery in Annan. On August 18th, over 35 guests joined us for wine, light food, and a tour of the winery, which overlooked beautiful Georgian Bay. It was wonderful to meet with our existing donors and introduce ourselves to members of GABP as well. We also hosted our Walk 4 Wetlands with GABP in East Linton. It was a great day for a hike on the Sydenham section of the Bruce Trail and to meet with friends for a bowl of chili too. CONE hosted a presentation in Hamilton which focused on the aggregate industry and its relation to the transportation structure. We believe that this topic is not discussed as much as it should be. Our presenters were CONE Vice President, Monte Dennis, and local writer/researcher/photographer, Dave Heidebrecht. Their presentation highlighted the problems in Ontario, but also emphasized real examples of sustainable transportation solutions that are already taking place. We were happy to have Carl Cosack, Chair of the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Taskforce (NDACT), join us for this talk.

You can view a listing of upcoming events on our website at www.niagaraescarpment.org. Click on ‘About the Escarpment’ at the top and a drop down menu will appear. Click on ‘Escarpment Events’ to view the listing.

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AN uPDATE FROM THE NECSubmitted by Karen Carruthers, Communications Officer, NEC

Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve UNESCO reviewThe Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve (NEBR) is in the process of a UNESCO-mandated 10-Year Periodic Review. An opportunity to document and highlight successes and areas for improvement, the UNESCO Review includes the production of a Self Study report, documenting trends such as changes to the biosphere’s land area, population statistics, partnership projects and scientific research listings. In collaboration with biosphere reserve partners including CONE, NEC staff produced the NEBR’s Self Study report and submitted it to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO on June 29. The review process will continue with the Self Study’s review by team of UNESCO-assigned reviewers, and future updates will be posted at www.escarpment.org as they are available.

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Celebrating the Best of the Niagara EscarpmentOver the spring and summer months, the NEC has been proud to present its 2012 series of the Niagara Escarpment Achievement Awards to a roster of very deserving recipients who have furthered the objectives of the Niagara Escarpment Plan, including CONE’s founder, Lyn MacMillan. For the full list of our 2012 honourees please see http://escarpment.org/landplanning/awards/index.php.

Charting Our FutureThe NEC’s draft 2012-2016 Strategic Plan has been in circulation this summer, with a final submission to the Ministry of Natural Resources expected in the fall.

NEC Planning Update on Walker Aggregates Inc. Hearing DecisionAt its August 16, 2012 meeting, the NEC voted to file an application for Judicial Review of the Consolidated Board’s decision to approve Walker Aggregates Inc.’s Duntroon Quarry application. It was the Commission’s opinion that the Board’s decision contained errors of law and interpretation of the Niagara Escarpment Plan’s policies.

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THE EMERGENCE OF HAMILTON’S NETWORk OF ESCARPMENT PARkSWritten by John Bacher, CONE Director

Alex Murray, who is a veteran board member of the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment, told me the story of how he began to appreciate

the wonders of the Niagara Escarpment. Although as a child he cycled from Hamilton to Niagara Falls he did not appreciate the Escarpment until much later in life after receiving a doctorate in Geography. Upon receiving his doctorate, Alex visited many cities around the world. Never in his travels however, did he ever experience the same sort of vivid greenery he had already enjoyed in his native Hamilton. This was because of the wealth of forests in Hamilton on the Niagara Escarpment. While lush today and even by the time Alex completed his studies of Geography in the 1940s, Hamilton’s Niagara Escarpment, like many of the forests of Ontario were not always so green. In 1900 the city’s “mountain”, which is a name still used by many in the region to describe the Escarpment was largely barren rock- apart from a few inaccessible old growth cedars. Problems that encouraged deforestation in across the Escarpment were in the 19th century also present in Hamilton. People raised livestock in the city, which contributed to the grazing of seedlings on the Escarpment. It was also common for city people to cut down trees for fuel. The movement to protect and ecologically restore the Niagara Escarpment began in Hamilton as part of the reforms of what is known by historians as the “Progressive era.” The first critical measure was passed in a municipal referendum in 1913 when a $130,000 municipal debenture was approved to purchase Escarpment land for reforestation and parks purposes. In the same year was elected to Hamilton City Council a remarkable friend of the Niagara Escarpment- Thomas McQuesten. He would continue his efforts to protect and restore the Niagara Escarpment until his death in 1948. Today the effort to protect the Niagara Escarpment’s role as a diverse and healthy ecosystem is best shown by the initiative spearheaded by an organization McQuesten created the Royal Botanical Gardens. (RBG) This is called the Cootes to Escarpment initiative. It seeks to expand upon the 3,700 acres of protected natural areas that form the only continuous wild corridor between Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment. McQuesten took the first step in assembling what is now in effect the world’s largest urban parks, through the creation of LaSalle Park in Burlington in 1915.

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McQuesten followed the Christian commandment to be combine the wiles of a serpent and the innocence of a dove to build up the world’s largest urban park in Steel City. Despite his determination to employ stealth tactics, controversy often erupted. One took place in 1929 when he was promoting the King Forest Park in Hamilton’s Red Hill Valley. City Councillors who were critical of the purchase of 700 acres in Hamilton’s Red Hill Valley turned their”peashooters” on McQuesten and called for the Hamilton Parks Board to be abolished.

When being sprayed by pea shot McQuesten was fortunate that by this time the then Deputy Minister of Forests, Edmund Zavitz, had developed a program to help municipal parks authorities known as the Demonstration Forests program. On this basis lands that were acquired by municipalities were reforested through the efforts of his department. This resulted in theconiferous forest in King Forest Park, which can still be seen today.

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McQuesten used a great variety of wiles to assemble parkland. When he was Minister of Highways he was able to transfer lands previously

held by the Department of Highways for the purpose of a future quarry to the RBG. This is now one of the RBG’s most pristine wild areas, the Rock Chapel. After his death however in 1948 the fact that there was no longer any strong supporter of the RBG’s vision with great influence over the provincial government meant that its land acquisitions ceased. After McQuesten’s death the natural areas system of Cootes to Escarpment was expanded through one of Zavitz’s greatest achievements the passage of the Conservation Authorities Act of 1946. This allowed new areas to be protected and publicly purchased through the creation of conservation areas. Their purchase price until the late 1980s were seventy-five percent paid for by the provincial government. Although some land acquisition is still being done by the Bruce Trail Conservancy within the Coots to Escarpment system, the growth in new protected areas has largely ceased through the cut backs of funding to conservation authorities which became quite draconian in the 1990s. This is one of the reasons for the launching of the Cootes to Escarpment initiative last year, which faces many challenges.

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CONE JOINS FORCES TO STOP THE ESCARPMENT HIGHWAyby Monte Dennis, CONE Vice President

The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation hosted their annual Greenbelt Harvest

Picnic on September 1 in Dundas. Members of CONE’s board of directors, including myself, volunteered with Stop Escarpment Highway Coalition (SEHC) to educate the public on a proposed 400 series highway development that would be blasting through the Niagara Escarpment and many creeks and ANSI wetlands, all a part of our Greenbelt. The SEHC is made up of other like-minded environmental organizations such as, Environment Hamilton, Citizens Opposed to Paving the Escarpment (COPE), Protecting Escarpment Rural Lands (PERL), and Sustainable Vaughan to name a few. Our goal that day was not only to educate but to encourage visitors to sign one of our postcards that we will be sending to the Minister of Transportation, Bob Chiarelli, to ask him not to proceed with this plan. On Tuesday, October 23, the City of Burlington, Halton Region, and SEHC hosted a public meeting to discuss this proposed highway. We were overwhelmed with the response. Over 500 citizens attended to speak up for the Niagara Escarpment, sign a postcard, and say NO! to a new highway.

SEHC has released this YouTube video titled, “Why We Don’t Want the Niagara Escarpment Highway”. You can view it online here: http://bit.ly/SNN7rR or use your smartphone to scan the QR code on the left. Please watch and share with your online and offline friends!

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A WIN FOR THE JEFFERSON SALAMANDERby Robert Patrick, CONE President

The Jefferson Salamander won Thursday, October 11, 2012 when the Joint Board refused Nelson Aggregate’s quarry expansion on top of the Mount Nemo plateau. There will be no new quarry on Mount

Nemo once the current aggregate extraction operation runs out of licensed area in about 5 to 7 years. It was a unanimous decision from the three panel members. CONE is very pleased by this victory for PERL and the residents of Mount Nemo who will have the water collection features of the Niagara Escarpment preserved that ensure water flows in the streams that have their head waters on Mount Nemo. The endangered Jefferson salamander will have its habitat saved as the ponds on Sarah Harmer’s parents’ property will continue to allow for salamander breading and the adjacent deciduous forest will continue to be their favoured adult habitat. Both the ponds and the forest were in danger of negative impacts from the proposed quarrying in the proposed expansion area adjacent to the Harmer ponds and that would have eliminated the deciduous forest in order to extract aggregate.

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This decision will be referred to for many years as quarrying impacts are weighed against habitat for endangered species. I am aware

of several proposals in the works where the aggregate industry may be forced to reconsider

their siting based on this decision. It was well worth the 16 months of sitting through this hearing

to receive this decision that proved the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act is a strong “environment first” land use plan. Thank you, Niagara Escarpment Commission, Region of Halton, Conservation Halton, and the City of Burlington, for supporting PERL and the residents of Mount Nemo. Thank you panel members for seeing through the water science spins and inconsistencies presented to you during this hearing. Now we have to get on with the re-designation of the acknowledged ANSI features of Mount Nemo in the Niagara Escarpment Plan so that all of Mount Nemo will be protected from future pressures for inappropriate industrial activity.

above photo Matt Tillett

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CONE MEMbER ORGANIzATIONSAlpineClubofCanada,The(Toronto)•climbers.org BeaverValleyRatepayersAssociation•beavervalleyratepayers.caBlueMountainWatershedTrustFoundation•bmwt.caBrucePeninsulaBirdObservatory•bpbo.caBrucePeninsulaEnvironmentGroup•bpeg.caBruceTrailConservancy•brucetrail.orgCaledon Countryside Alliance CanadianEnvironmentalLawAssociation•cela.ca CitizensOpposedtoPavingtheEscarpment•cope-nomph.orgConserverSocietyofHamiltonandDistrict•conserversociety.caEarthroots•earthroots.orgEscarpmentBiosphereConservancy•escarpment.caFriendsofShortHillsPark•friendsofshorthillspark.ca GreenVenture•greenventure.caGreyAssociationforBetterPlanning•gabp.caHalton/NorthPeelNaturalists’Club•hnpnc.comHamiltonNaturalists’Club•hamiltonnature.orgNature League OntarioNature•ontarionature.orgOwenSoundFieldNaturalists•owensoundfieldnaturalists.ca PitSense•pitsense.caProtectingEscarpmentRuralLands•perlofburlington.orgProtectOurWaterandEnvironmentalResources•powerhalton.caPreservationofAgriculturalLandsSociety•people.becon.org/~pals/index.html SaugeenFieldNaturalists• saugeenfieldnaturalists.comSouthPeelNaturalistsClub•spnc.caSaveTheOakRidgesMoraine•stormcoalition.orgTorontoCavingGroup,The•trigger.net/~tcg/ UpperCreditFieldNaturalists•uppercreditfieldnaturalists.orgWildlandsLeague•wildlandsleague.org

VOLuNTEERING WITH CONEThe Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment is maintained through the power of our dedicated volunteers. We rely on people like you to ensure that CONE can continue its work to protect the Niagara Escarpment. Volunteer positions for NEC Meeting Monitor, Escarpment Media Monitor, Niagara Escarpment Plan Researchers, and CONE/Greenbelt road sign project assistant are currently open. Most of our volunteer positions can be done from the convenience of your home office. If you can give CONE some of your time we would greatly appreciate it. Please send an email to Josh Gordon at outreach@niagaraescarpment.org with your name, skills you could offer, and some related experience. Thank you!

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