By IAN ROSS
Northern Ontario Business
A controversial Wawa trap rock quarry project will now come under the auspices of the province’s Aggregates Resources Act.
Superior Aggregates had no objections to the province’s Aug. 4 decision to expand the legislation to cover the controversial shoreline development and will apply for an operating licence.
The company’s consultant, Harold Cheley, an aggregate specialist with DST Consulting, a Sudbury engineering firm, says Superior Aggregates has been following the spirit of the Aggregate Resources Act for the last two years as the company’s guarantee to Wawa residents.
“We’ve done an excessive amount of studies (compared) to a normal application because it’s a different location with fishery spawning areas and
the First Nations involved, so we’ve taken extra precautions and our U.S. clients says that’s what they wanted. They didn’t want any shortcuts...(or) loose ends.”
But Cheley says the re-circulation of plans and documents to various government agencies, as well as a likely Ontario Municipal Board hearing, will
possibly delay the project for another year or more.
Superior Aggregates, a subsidiary of Michigan road builder Carlos Companies, will use the material for highway construction.
The project involves the blasting, crushing and transportation of trap rock from a quarry in Michipicoten Harbour on the eastern shore of Lake
Superior, just south of the town of Wawa, about 230 km north of Sault Ste. Marie. About 20 jobs would be created.
Once operational, about 23,000 tonnes of rock per week will be processed on the site, roughly one lake freighter-load, and transported to various markets in Ontario and the U.S. Midwest.
Previously, there were no regulations pertaining to operating pits and quarries on private lands in many areas of Northern Ontario. Now, all aggregate operations on private lands within Michipicoten Township and 12 nearby unorganized townships are subject to site plan requirements under the Act.
The Act spells out rules and regulations governing the operation and closure of pits and quarries on all Crown land and designated private lands.
It includes the establishment of setback areas, buffers and the creation of berms and tree screens to reduce the visual impact of a quarry operation and protect natural features.
Cheley has circulated the project plans to a number of provincial government agencies during the municipal zoning process “and now we’re going to do it again.”
Based on feedback from public information sessions staged by the company in 2002 and 2003, Cheley says the majority of people in the area support the quarry project.
The Ministry of Environment has received hundreds of requests for and against the designation of the quarry under the Environmental Assessment Act.
Critics of the project, including the U.S. Waterkeeper Alliance, have called upon two successive provincial governments for a full-scale
environmental assessment. The Ministry of Environment is still mulling over the request.
Cheley says the Aggregate Resources Act is a much stronger piece of legislation than the Environmental Assessment Act, providing more explicit operating guidelines, stringent environmental monitoring, tougher penalties and site rehabilitation guarantees.
He says the Ontario government is fully aware that the property had previously operated as an industrial brownfield site for more than 100 years
— moving millions of tonnes of iron ore and coal — but the province is acting on the complaints of some high-profile North American
environmental groups who view the area as protected heritage shoreline.
Stuart Thatcher, senior aggregate policy maker with the Ministry of Natural Resources, concedes the environmental outcry over the Superior Aggregates’ project was the likely tipping point to expand the Act, though the Ministry has been considering that option for some time.
“Because of the sensitivity around Superior Aggregates and the township wanting the designation, the ministry decided on going ahead with it.”
Under the new rules, established pits and quarries will be guaranteed an operating licence if the operators file a site plan within six months of notification.
Beyond those timelines, they must cease operations until they file an appropriate plan.
“The idea of the legislation is not to put anybody out of business,” says Thatcher. The province has previously approved other near-shore quarry operations on Manitoulin Island and in the Bay of Quinte without any major environmental fallout, he says. Only four sites in the province
produce this type of product.
Ontario Trap Rock, another Northern Ontario-based quarry, has been operating at Bruce Mines on the north shore of Lake Huron for a number of
years. The aggregate is used in 400-series highways to prevent skidding and rutting.
