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Jul 17, 2009
Focus: Environment
Action Request: Write E-Mail
Location: Canada

EBR Registry No.: 010-6516

As the government moves forward with the implementation of the Green Energy Act, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) has begun to draft the regulations that will guide the process and set the standard for the protection of natural heritage features. The first step is the Renewable Energy Approval regulation recently posted on the Environmental Registry for public comment. This regulation outlines the approval process for renewable energy projects. Several changes to the regulation are needed to ensure that the development of “green” energy is truly green and does not compromise the protection and restoration of Ontario’s natural heritage. You can now comment on the proposed regulation through the Environmental Registry. The deadline for comments is July 24, 2009.

The government should be applauded for its efforts to expand the use of clean and renewable sources of energy through its Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009. The new legislation aims to mitigate the impacts of climate change by facilitating the development of renewable sources of energy. To do so, it is removing barriers to development in part by streamlining the approval process for proposed projects.

What we need to ensure, however, is that in streamlining approvals, the government puts in place adequate protections for Ontario’s wildlife and natural environment. In responding to climate change we must keep in mind the importance of maintaining biodiversity and protecting natural communities and systems in order to enhance landscape resilience and options for adaptation.

Outlined below is a list of concerns that must be addressed.

  1. The key mechanism proposed for protecting natural heritage features is a 120 metre “setback” from significant features. To be effective, the significant natural heritage features to be protected through the approval process must include provincially, regionally and locally significant features. Given that the streamlined process will now bypass any protection formerly provided for locally and regionally significant features through municipal official plans, the new approval process must ensure that these features are protected. Project proponents must be required to assess and identify significant features (i.e. locally, regionally and provincially significant) within 120 metres of their proposed projects as part of their submission for approval.
  2. The proposed approval process explicitly prohibits projects from being sited within some natural heritage features (e.g., significant wetlands in southern Ontario, provincial parks and conservation reserves), but does not prohibit them within others (e.g. significant wetlands in northern Ontario, significant woodlands, significant valleylands, significant wildlife habitat, significant Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest). The approval process must explicitly prohibit the siting of projects within any locally, regionally or provincially significant natural heritage features.
  3. Despite the 120 metre setback, the proposed approval process would allow projects to be sited within the setback (i.e. closer to the natural heritage feature) if impacts are mitigated. There is no test, standard or threshold for the mitigation requirement, leaving the door wide open for projects to infringe upon the 120 metre setback. If green energy is to be truly green, the setback must offer a clear minimum standard for protection. The approval process must prohibit development within the 120 metre setback unless the project proponent can demonstrate that there will be no harm to the significant natural heritage feature.
  4. In other provincial guidelines, such as the Natural Heritage Reference Manual, the recommendation of a 120 metre buffer is acknowledged to be more than required to protect a natural feature in some cases, and less than required in other cases. Where it is determined (e.g. through public consultation) that the 120 metre buffer is likely to be insufficient, the Director issuing the approval must have the discretion to require the proponent to undertake further studies and to extend the buffer and/or mitigate the harmful impacts.
  5. The impacts of some forms of renewable energy are poorly understood and a subject of considerable controversy. In order to learn more about these impacts and improve our ability to address them, monitoring and assessing impacts will be critical. The approval process should require project proponents to prepare a monitoring plan as part of their submission for approval.

Make your voice heard! Let the Ministry of Environment know that the Renewable Energy Approval regulation must be revised to adequately protect Ontario’s natural heritage.

Please keep in mind that original responses are weighed more heavily than are form letters. We suggest that you use the points above to draft your own letter and either post it online to the link below or send a hard copy to the listed address by July 24, 2009. Be sure to reference the EBR registry number: 010-6516.

If you are pressed for time, a sample letter has also been prepared. Please cut and paste the text below, post it on the EBR or send a hard copy to the address at the bottom of this page.

Please send a copy of your letter to Ontario Nature at 366 Adelaide St., W., Suite 201, Toronto, ON M5V 1R9 or email to amberc@ontarionature.org. You can also fax your letter to (416) 444-9866.

For more information and to submit comments online click here: www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTA2NDQ5&statusId=MTU5NjQ1&language=en

Or send a hard copy to:

Marcia Wallace, Manager
Ministry of the Environment
Environmental Programs Division
Program Planning and Implementation Branch
55 St. Clair Avenue West, Floor 7
Toronto Ontario M4V 2Y7


SAMPLE LETTER

DATE

Marcia Wallace, Manager
Ministry of the Environment
Environmental Programs Division
Program Planning and Implementation Branch
55 St. Clair Avenue West, Floor 7
Toronto Ontario M4V 2Y7

Dear Ms. Wallace,

RE: Proposed Ministry of Environment Regulation to Implement the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. EBR Registry No.: 010-6516

I would like to congratulate the government on its efforts to promote the development and use of renewable energy in Ontario. The Green Energy and Green Economy Act is a promising step towards mitigating the impacts of climate change.

At the same time, however, I am writing to express my concern about certain aspects of the proposed Renewable Energy Approval regulation. Revisions to the proposed approval process are necessary to ensure that “green” energy is truly green. The streamlining of the approval process must not compromise the protection of Ontario’s natural heritage, and therefore I urge you to make the following revisions to the regulation:

  1. Require project proponents to assess and identify locally, regionally and provincially significant natural heritage features within 120 metres of proposed projects as a condition of approval.
  2. Prohibit the siting of projects within any locally, regionally or provincially significant natural heritage features.
  3. Prohibit development within the proposed 120 metre setback unless the project proponent can demonstrate that there will be no harm to the significant natural heritage feature.
  4. Empower Director(s) issuing approvals to extend the 120 metre setback where necessary to prevent harm to a significant natural heritage feature.
  5. Require project proponents to prepare, as a condition of approval, a plan to monitor and assess project impacts on the natural environment.

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the proposed regulation. I trust that it will be revised along the lines suggested above so that it offers adequate protection for Ontario’s wildlife and natural environment. Only then can Ontario hope to position itself as a world leader in the development and use of “green” energy.

Yours truly,
Your name and address

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Posted: Jul 17, 2009 12:03pm
Sep 8, 2006
Focus: Environment
Action Request: Write Letter
Location: Canada

   
Let's make the right choice for Ontario's future!


   
The Ontario Government has released its response to the Ontario Power Authority's (OPA's) deeply flawed Supply Mix recommendations.

The government has mostly accepted the OPA's deeply flawed logic about the need to re-invest in high cost, high risk nuclear power. In many ways, this takes us back 20 years when many of the same kinds of inflated forecasts for power demand were used to try to justify a need for dozens of new nuclear stations -- none of which were ever needed or built. Unfortunately, in the same era, the province also abandoned its commitment to reducing electricity demand.

Worse yet, the McGuinty government has essentially abandoned its commitment to phase-out coal power by 2009, handing the task to the Ontario Power Authority (which has demonstrated no real support for the coal phase out) with no fixed deadlines. Another huge step backwards for Ontario.

Nuclear power means more public subsidies for inefficient energy use, more need to keep dirty coal plants on stand-by to cover for unreliable (and frequently out of service) nuclear units, and more dollars diverted away from efficiency and productivity improvements that could really increase our economic competitiveness and quality of life. They will take years to build at a time when Ontario could be meeting its immediate power needs -- including securing replacement power for coal -- by aggressively pursuing efficiency, renewable power and combined heat and power.


You can send the Premier a message through his official feedback website -- https://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/feedback.asp. We have provided some text that you can easily copy into the site's feedback form to get you started with your message, but please take a few minutes to put these thoughts in your own words. Click here for suggested text.


If you'd like more information on our energy vision for Ontario, please contact us at contact@gocleanandgreen.org or 416-926-1907 x245

Suggested text:


Dear Premier Dalton McGuinty,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment and dismay at your decision to re-commit Ontario to inefficient, unsafe nuclear power. This, combined with your abandonment of any real effort to achieve the long-promised coal phase out, represents a huge betrayal of the interests of the people of Ontario.

Instead of addressing the real issues, such as the inefficiency of our current electricity system and the need to replace dirty coal, your plan leaves the province headed down the same old path that has led us to over-consumption, huge public debts and an unreliable electricity system in the first place.

I believe this entire plan needs to be reconsidered. In keeping with your promise to fully consult the people of Ontario before once again pursuing the likely disastrous nuclear option, I am asking you to schedule full public hearings on the complete plans (and not piecemeal hearings on various nuclear elements). This is the least you owe the people of this province in the face of your inability to deliver a plan that truly addresses the need to phase out dirty coal and to move away from high cost, high risk nuclear power.

Please let me know when I can expect to hear that you will be holding full and rigorous public hearings on this plan.


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Posted: Sep 8, 2006 6:13am

 

 
 
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