Council: Wetlands damage needs explanation
Members want to question Thundering Waters developer, NPCA
Niagara Falls city council is looking for answers after crews at the Thundering Waters site damaged protected trees and wetlands while doing soil testing last month.
The developer, GR (Can) Investment Ltd., and Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority will be asked to send representatives to the Jan. 15 council meeting to explain how it happened and what repairs are being done.
Coun. Wayne Thomson, who supported the controversial project when council approved it earlier this year, said it “was a very difficult decision for me, and to have this happen is in my opinion unacceptable.
“I’d like to have somebody there, in front of us, telling us exactly how this happened and came about. Is there a valid comment for that happening? I don’t know.”
The debate Tuesday began as a chance for councillors to decide what person, if any, to recommend to Niagara Region to fill the city’s lone seat at the conservation authority.
But with NPCA embroiled in controversy over the makeup of its board and how a new board might be appointed, the Region last week named an interim board to oversee it for three months while issues are clarified.
Hearing that, city council decided to wait before acting.
But councillors weren’t prepared to stand down on learning more about the damage at Thundering Waters.
After investigating, last week NPCA confirmed it issued a notice of violation against GR (Can) and gave the company two weeks to submit a plan to repair the damage.
GR (Can) owns the 193.6-hectare property northeast of Chippawa Parkway and the hydro canal. GR wants to build a $1.5billion retail, tourist and residential development called Riverfront Community, but plans are being appealed before the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.
More than half of the property is considered provincially significant wetland that cannot be built on or harmed in development.
No hearing date has been set yet.
The city, NPCA and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry worked with GR (Can) to approve a map showing where boreholes could be drilled.
Last week, an NPCA spokesman said workers “veered off course slightly, which made them go into provincially significant wetlands … only a couple of metres off course.”
The development has been controversial from the start, with critics maintaining the land is undevelopable because of the volume of wetlands there.
Four letters from the public questioning GR’s commitment to protect the environment and calling on the city to take action against the company were included in Tuesday’s council agenda. They’ll be added to the Jan. 15 agenda.
Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni — who with Coun. Wayne Campbell voted against approval of the development — said Tuesday she has “multiple questions about the NPCA, Thundering Waters” she intends to ask at the January meeting.
“But I don’t want it to be a ‘gotcha’ kind of meeting, so I will email it out to council … so everyone knows what I’m going to ask and where I am getting my information from.”
She said she will also focus on provincial Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s investigation of the former NPCA board, of which Mayor Jim Diodati was a member.
In her report, Lysyk was critical of the board, including the fact it was made up almost entirely of politicians.
That, she wrote, potentially put them in a conflict in choosing between environmental protection and economic development in their communities.
Campbell reiterated his concerns that the property remains unsecured and trespassers could damage the wetlands.
Planning director Alex Herlovitch said GR (Can) has identified “locations where they want to put up fencing and security so that people couldn’t be entering the property with their ATVs and other recreational vehicles.”
NPCA hasn’t authorized that work yet, though, he added.