Alien species

Sylvia Davis has a peculiar job. She is paid by the Ministry of Environment to argue that there is nothing particularly valuable, salvageable or even worthwhile about the environment. Or, at least, not so much that the animals and plants who live there, or their genetic descendants, won’t recover after decades of abuse and industrialization.

The contraditions of her job mean she lives in a relative world: the land was ruined already, she reasons —it was used as a military training ground. What additional harm can 500-foot high industrial wind turbines, the attendant roadway network and grid infrastructure do?

In her job as lawyer for the ministry, Davis must challenge experts who have dedicated their lives to researching specific aspects of the ecosystem. Folks who understand better than anyone the tender balance upon which species and habitats exist and disappear. Her job is to tear down this research, discredit the findings and marginalize its implications.

At the end of the day she hops in her taxpayer- funded hybrid car with Ontario logo and trillium emblazoned on the door and zips eco-smugly down the 401 home to Toronto.

Paul Catling seems a polite and gentle man. Last week he skillfully managed to turn an otherwise dry and tedious Environmental Review Tribunal hearing into an entertaining and at times compelling seminar, for a day at least, on the qualities and features of an alvar ecosystem—specifically, the alvar that comprises much of the terrain at Ostrander Point upon which Gilead Power proposes to populate with massive wind turbines.

In simple terms an alvar is described as land with a very thin covering of soil, or no soil at all, atop a limestone plain. Catling explained to the tribunal that according to the collected wisdom to date, alvars evolve along centuries-long cycles in which mostly grassy expanses eventually give way to shrub land. A thinly populated alvar woodland can subsequently then emerge. Typically natural fire erases the woodland and the cycle begins anew.

The stressed habitat of the alvar provides home for a community of rare plants and animals. Catling is a research scientist with the federal government. He advises governments and conservancy agencies on issues of plant taxonomy, native germ plasm, berry crops, medicinal plants, and invading alien plants.

He is experienced, clearly knowledgeable and an unshakeable expert on alvar ecosystems. He explained to the tribunal, last week in Demorestville, that putting an industrial wind turbine project on Ostrander Point would cause serious and irreversible damage to this alvar ecosystem.

He explained that not nearly enough research has been done, that there could be many more endangered species put at risk by this development.

He was calm and deliberate but unwavering in his view that industrializing Ostrander Point was a mistake and would cause irreversible harm to the environment.

But these are poisonous words to Sylvia Davis. She needs to show that what ever environmental degradation is proposed or likely to result from the activity the director of the Ministry of Environment has approved, it will not be so ruinous as to be permanent.

It is a low threshold for Davis to clear—but an expert witnesses who describe permanent destruction is trouble.

Davis knows she can’t go at Catling head on. He is too smart and too able. So she works away at the edges.

“Isn’t the presence of woody buckthorn, lilac and honeysuckle evidence of human interference with the alvar?” “Didn’t these alien species emerge from a previous road network?”

Davis picked away at this dubious angle. She suggested that because the alvar has been disrupted already, that it will require human intervention to restore it to its natural state. She attempted to lure Catling into agreeing with the implication that humans have already ruined the alvar—that surely no additional harm can come from industrializing it with wind turbines. At least none humans can’t fix it later.

These are awfully strange sounds coming from someone who works for the Ministry of Environment. The casual observer expects to hear these arguments from Gilead’s high-priced attorneys. But they sound wrong and perverted coming from the ministry responsible for protecting the environment.

It is a bizarre spectacle. The only folks actually working to protect this land and the animals and plants that live there, at this phase of the hearing, are a handful of individuals who make up the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists. To do so, they must take on their own government—with their own money, wits and determination.

Is it any wonder that ordinary folks have begun to question who their government is working for? If you can help, go to saveostranderpoint.org or call Cheryl Anderson at 613-471-1096 today.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca