Meadows, wetlands and woods

In Mississauga, ambitious plans are afoot to restore the former Lakeview generating station lands to meadows, wetlands and woods. With luck and money, proponents hope the land will one day provide habitat for migratory birds and other animals. Houses and shops will follow in the grand development plan between the municipality and the province. News stories hail these plans as an inspiring model of restoration of industrial land—of what can be. It has been described by some as a “dream come true.”

Meanwhile, 250 kilometres to the east, excavators and cranes are carving up meadows, wetlands and woods to build a new generating station—alongside an existing, mostly idle generating station. Natural habitat is being shredded and paved over. It is nobody’s dream.

In 2005, the Lakeview coal-fired generating station was demolished— to be replaced by two gas-fired generating plants—one nearby, another in Oakville.

But residents of these communities told the province they didn’t want these plants in their vicinity. Fearing the loss of a couple of seats, then-Premier Dalton McGuinty yielded to politcal pressure in 2011. The Oakville plant—already rising out of the ground—was cancelled. Instead it would be built west of Bath, across the bay from Cressy—next to the rarely used Lennox Generating Station—also powered by gas. This station sits idle more often than it runs. In fact, less than two per cent of its output capacity is generated from this plant each year.

New wires will have to be strung to transport this power back to Mississauga. The estimated cost to do this is currently $675 million. It will be more.

This is what politics does. Building power plants where they aren’t needed. Alongside underused generating plants. To power a city 250 kilometres away.

In Washington last week, President Obama cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline. He will take the trophy of the dead pipeline project to Paris next month and hold it high as a symbol of his nation’s commitment to be green. Few in attendance will challenge the president’s motives, or the uncomfortable fact his administration approved 20,000 miles of oil pipelines in the seven years it dithered over the 1,200-mile Keystone XL. Symbols matter. Facts don’t.

And so this brings us back to hearings in Prince Edward County where we can vividly see how politics is contorting laudable ambitions into perverse nightmares. Spare a moment to consider the terrible predicament of folks like Sylvia Davis, Karen Bellamy and Joe Crowley.

Davis chose to work for the Ministry of Environment. Bellamy and Crowley joined the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. It is not a stretch to imagine that each came to their jobs with hopes and dreams of making their world a better place. Particularly the natural world. There are other jobs, other places that need their skills. But each of them chose to be advocates of nature and the environment. Or that’s how it must have felt in the beginning.

a big wind developer—one more lawyer in a row, draining the bank accounts and fragile resources of a volunteer group of bird lovers. I don’t believe Bellamy dreamed as child of playing a key role in the destruction of a rare alvar habitat. And I don’t believe Crowley wants to preside over the further decline of an endangered species.

Politics has thrust them here.

Crowley, for one, became an expert on endangered species in Ontario. He is immersed in this study every day. Teaches conservation. Preaches the risks.

Yet Crowley must now endure the scrutiny of tenacious lawyers insisting he reconcile the fact that he knows the proposed wind energy project will surely destroy the habitat of the Blanding’s turtle, with his ministry’s decision to grant the developer a permit to “kill, harm or harass” it anyway.

It must be excruciating. Soul crushing. At first these folks might have been soothed by telling themselves the heavy-handed power of the GEA was a necessary evil on a road toward the greater good. They know better now.

They know this is politics. They have become cogs in a machine whose sole purpose is to deliver to its government masters a green trophy to display to the electorate and boast to the world. It matters not at all how many endangered species are diminished, how many birds will by destroyed or how many lives will be impacted.

These folks are the last people who should be made to do this job. It is a measure of the province’s contempt that it compels them to do this day after day.

They can, of course, go home when this is all over. Bitter and hardened—but free from having to live with the results of their actions.We don’t have that choice— this is our home.

Or we could move to Mississauga. They have big plans to create a meadows, wetlands and woods there.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca