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LETTER: Reader calls for protection of Clair-Maltby moraines

Moraine lands filter and clean surface water before it reaches underground lakes or 'aquifers', and is ecologically important to the Guelph region, reader says
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GuelphToday received the following letter to the editor from Susan Watson who wants the citizens of Guelph to lobby for protection of the Paris-Galt moraine land area.

Guelph, and indeed all Ontario citizens, have just been handed a “once in a generation” opportunity to protect our environment and groundwater through an expansion of Ontario’s Greenbelt.

Guelphites can influence city hall’s ask by lobbying the mayor and councillors and delegating to the committee of the whole on April 6, as well as a subsequent council meeting. Input and comments can also be submitted directly to the Province until April 19 via the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

On Feb. 17, Stephen Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs, made a surprise announcement that the province was launching a consultation on growing the Greenbelt. Specifically, the province is considering including urban river valleys and sections of the Paris-Galt moraine which runs through the yet-undeveloped south-end of Guelph.

Ontario’s moraines are swaths of sand and gravel left behind by glaciers which melted some 11,000 years ago. They perform crucial “environmental services” by filtering and cleaning surface water before it reaches underground lakes or “aquifers”. Guelph is an entirely groundwater dependent community. We need to protect the ecological services the moraine provides not just for humans but for ecosystems which depend on the watersheds they feed.

Moraine lands are incredibly environmentally sensitive because they are so porous. A spill of motor oil on a driveway near St. George’s park will hit a layer of clay, limiting the damage it can cause. But on the Clair-Maltby moraine lands, that same oil spill is at risk of reaching and contaminating the aquifer underneath.
Guelph is poised to sprawl into the Paris-Galt Moraine as it develops the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan. This plan needs to go in the shredder and that section of the moraine needs to become part of the expanded, protected Greenbelt.

We have significant land assets within our built boundary which have yet to be developed: the Innovation District, IMICO and the Lafarge (Silvercreek) lands. Downtown intensification is not yet complete. The Dolime quarry area may become a subdivision in the middle of the city. New legislation has opened the door for accessory dwellings to be built in backyards. We’ve just seen the first development application come forward for intensification and redevelopment of a low-density plaza – Willow West Mall.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) has prepared a helpful backgrounder: Expanding Ontario’s Greenbelt: Getting it Right. They also assert that Ontario has large surpluses of land for development and growth within the current built boundaries of cities. In growing the Greenbelt CELA writes that we should “work towards simultaneously improving public health, local food security, water security, climate resilience, biodiversity, conservation and economic prosperity.

In May, 2019, Guelph politicians voted to “acknowledge a climate crisis”. If that acknowledgement is to be more than empty rhetoric, then we need to act accordingly, by curbing unsustainable growth which damages ecosystems and puts future groundwater supplies at risk.

Phone and email the mayor and your city councillors.

Tell them to ask the province to make the Clair-Maltby area part of a protected Greenbelt. Demand increased protections, like no quarrying below the water table in the Greenbelt expansion area. Copy [email protected] so your correspondence will be part of the agenda for the meeting. The deadline to register to delegate to Committee of the Whole and to have correspondence included in the agenda is Thursday, April 1 at 10 a.m.

Susan Watson