Comment
Why do studies just to ignore them?
by Bruce Haire

It seems that a lot was done early this year and late last year to determine just how much effluent (treated sewage) that our lakes and rivers could handle.

The experts then came up with assimilative capacity studies for both Lake Simcoe and the Nottawasaga River.

Those studies were presented at the Spring IGAP open house. It seemed that Lake Simcoe was going to have difficulty handling more effluent while the Nottawasaga River had more capacity because effluent was being quickly dispersed when it hit Georgian Bay.

The IGAP study recommendation that most of the new growth for Simcoe County be located in north Innisfil (south Barrie) seemed to fly in the face of that recommendation.

Then last week we found out why. The environment was virtually ignored in the final analysis.

With three strictly economic factors given equal waiting to the environment, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the consultants could ignore environmental factors in their final recommendations.

Thus last week we find the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority opposed to all the growth options which exceed their targets - and that includes every option.

Remember when politicians gave lip service to terms like "sustainable development". But when it comes to development, it seems environment is always the loser.

The Conservation Authority concludes" The most significant issue associated with the proposed growth plan is that the proposed growth does not appear to be sustainable and will have significant impacts on the watershed natural features and functions."

Under IGAP, the environment is given a 25% waiting. Infastructure, servicing and costs assciated with future growth also each get a 25% weighting.

That's without taking into consideration an overloaded Highway 400. We are already hearing that some industry will not come up the 400 corridor to locate when there are so many stoppages on 400. IGAP managed to ignore the transportation factor.

So IGAP in choosing the Barrie and Area Single Node Scenario finds these are the easiest lands to service but ignores that it puts all the waste water into Kempenfelt Bay and Lover's Creek impacting directly on Lake Simcoe.

Thus three major conservation authority objectives are thrown out the window. They are sustaining a cold water fishing, improving water quality and reducing phosphorus loads.

Perhaps the Province and IGAP have forgotten that there is an economic cost to the loss of Lake Simcoe in declining tourism, loss of the value of waterfront, to say nothing of the quality of life.

One wonders why they do the environmental impact studies at all if they are just going to ignore them. At least, if they don't do them, they can claim stupidity and ignorance.