AG, NPCA at odds over biodiversity offsetting
A recently released Auditor General’s report stands in direct contrast to public statements made by representatives of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority about the controversial Thundering Waters development in Niagara Falls and a process known as biodiversity offsetting.
In a Twitter outburst on the weekend, activist Ed Smith said the conservation authority isn’t telling the truth about its support for biodiversity offsetting.
The auditor general’s report said NPCA lobbied for biodiversity offsetting as a way to move the 195-hectare development forward.
“It’s been frustrating for me all along,” Smith said. “I’ve had the documents. I’m not a stupid person. I knew what I was reading.”
NPCA officials have insisted they never supported biodiversity offsetting. They were just commenting on a policy suggestion from the province that had nothing to do what was then called Paradise at Thundering Waters.
The auditor general’s report and emails obtained by The Standard show NPCA was doing much more than making suggestions or commenting, it was lobbying for the change.
On the weekend Smith called out senior officials and NPCA board members on Twitter on the subject and began posting documents.
“We are getting close to the election,” Smith said. “I told these guys if you don’t act with integrity, then we will come after you during the time of accountability, two weeks before the election.
“We know they were trying to enable Thundering Waters.”
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk agreed. In her report released last month, she said NPCA representatives attended meetings with representatives from Niagara Falls, Niagara Region and the developer to discuss Thundering Waters in March 2015. Minutes from the meetings indicate NPCA senior managers said they were “working on an alternative way to address the obstacle posed by the wetlands within the land proposed for development.”
NPCA also hired a lobbyist. An email sent from then NPCA CAO
Carmen D’Angelo to registered lobbying firm Kealey and Associates in December 2015 told the firm biodiversity offsetting would be the No.1 priority.
Kealey and Associates organized meetings between NPCA and senior provincial government officials to discuss biodiversity offsetting for Thundering Waters, which was expected to generate more than $1 billion in investment and create more than 10,000 jobs.
The auditor general’s report said those discussions flew in the face of warnings by NPCA’s environmental staff to senior management that “there was no sound science to support the proposal given the type of wetlands in Thundering Waters.”
As environmentally-minded members of the public became aware of the possibility of biodiversity offsetting for Thundering Waters, they began to challenge NPCA.
At a packed public meeting at Ball’s Falls on Jan. 27, 2016, D’Angelo, who is now CAO of the Region, told an audience that discussions about biodiversity offsetting had nothing to do with any “current, online development today.”
“We have had a hard time catching up with it.”
Three months later, at a regional council meeting on April 28, the chair of the NPCA board, Sandy Annunziata, followed the same script. He said the conservation authority only commented on biodiversity offsetting as a provincial policy.
“The NPCA has taken no position other than, ‘If that’s what you want to do, province, then these would be our recommendations before any of that would ever be considered,” Annunziata then said.
“I just want to correct you when you say the NPCA can do this, the NPCA can do that. All the NPCA has done is comment to the province’s position.”
Annunziata and D’Angelo didn’t respond to requests for interviews for this story. Neither did the lobbying firm of Kealey and Associates.
Krystle Caputo, a communication specialist for NPCA, said the agency’s position is that any decision was the responsibility of the province, but NPCA would support a pilot project that would recreate three times more wetland than the province was considering.
Caputo also noted that an earlier iteration of the NPCA board supported biodiversity offsetting for Thundering Waters in 2008.