’Tis but a scratch

Shire Hall to “investigate” Picton Terminals, again

Midway through his quest for the Holy Grail, in Monty Python’s telling of the saga, Arthur, king of the Britons, encounters the Black Knight, who forbids the Grail seekers’ passage across a bridge. In the fight that ensues, Arthur proceeds to dismember the Black Night until his limbs are gone. Yet he continues to taunt Arthur.

“I’ve had worse,” says the Black Knight.

“Look, you stupid bastard, you have no arms left,” says Arthur.

“Just a flesh wound,” counters the Black Knight. As Arthur walks away, victorious, across the bridge, the black knight, now just a bloody torso, continues to argue, “Okay, we’ll call it a draw.”

Having been bloodied and beaten repeatedly by Picton Terminals and spent millions of taxpayer dollars defending itself along the way, County council is readying itself to engage in the fight once again.

Well, maybe not directly. Not right away in any event.

According to a motion brought by Councillor John Hirsch, last week, Council will send an entourage of bylaw officials to “investigate” to determine if Picton Terminals is contravening its zoning on a portion of its property.

While they are sniffing around, he hopes they might gather evidence to compel the province and its relevant ministries to either stop or regulate what some folks believe—and there may be some evidence— is a commercial quarrying operation underway on the property.

The problem is that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) has withdrawn from the fight. In a hearing in May, the Crown concluded that MNRF had granted Picton Terminals an exemption to extract aggregate to enable the development of the port facility. It was a wholly unsatisfactory outcome. It seems no provincial agency is willing to safeguard this community from Picton Terminal’s expanding activities.

THE CURRENT DISPUTE
Opponents of Picton Terminals are pushing the County to renew the fight, arguing that the property’s owners are operating a quarrying business dressed up as a port.

Councillor Hirsch says that as much as 1.2 million tonnes of aggregate may have been extracted from the property north of Picton, with an estimated value of $65 million. Hirsch says if this were a properly sanctioned quarry, the County would be in line for millions of dollars in royalties.

Hirsch wants the County to investigate.

SOME BACKGROUND
The County has poured countless resources attempting to put guardrails around the port facility. It has expended much municipal treasure doing so. It has little to show for efforts or expense.

Still, the neighbours around Picton Bay want Council to intervene on their behalf to curtail Picton Terminals’ activities. If not its own rules, the municipality should take the fight to the province and the federal government to enforce their own, according to opponents of Picton Terminals.

The municipality, in fact, has few levers to pull. Many of the matters most aggravating neighbours belong in the realm of provincial (environment and natural resources) or federal (navigable waters and shipping regulations).

The municipality governs how the land is used. The facility was first designated as a port in the early 1950s to move iron ore mined in Marmora. Though the land was dormant for decades, the zoning remained intact. While the municipality has significant power over zoning, it can’t arbitrarily remove or diminish property rights—not without compensation.

In 2018, a court ruled that part of the property was considered “legal non-conforming” for use as a port and related activities such as container stacking.

Prodded by residents, Shire Hall took Picton Terminals to court again in 2022 over what it perceived were zoning violations. More charges were filed in 2023.

But with legal bills piling up and the prospects for success dimming, the County offered to settle in 2024. It proposed a Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) to guide the enforcement of this thorny property.

Unsatisfied, opponents of Picton Terminals complained that the municipality was passing its responsibility to the province. In any event, the requested MZO is still not in place.

More recently, a court action between Picton Terminals and MNRF was stopped in May because the Crown concluded the port was covered by ministerial exemption— that the port facility was permitted to extract rock.

Picton Terminals has mostly ignored the municipality in recent years—arguing that Shire Hall lacks jurisdictional authority or that it is complying with municipal zoning regulations. A string of legal wins suggests the port owner is the stronger swordsman.

Opponents, including Councillor Hirsch, believe, however, that the judges’ comments reveal a fresh, new legal opportunity to continue the fight. Specifically, they argue that a portion of Picton Terminals’ property crosses into the Sophiasburgh ward and is zoned rural. Further, they claim the scale of aggregate extraction is far and away beyond the needs of the port.

Hirsch et al. suggest that if bylaw officers can demonstrate that Picton Terminals is violating zoning for the portion of land that crosses into Sophiasburgh, or that the quarrying activities are clearly beyond the scope allowed by the MNRF exemption, it can renew the legal fight. Or at least, nudge the developer back into compliance.

“It is time to find out where the County stands on Picton Terminals,” said Councillor Hirsch, suggesting the council member is eager to go beyond “investigating”. He wants bylaw officials to look for grounds to enable Shire Hall to rejoin the fight.

Like the Black Knight, he refuses to acknowledge that the battle is done and his foe has moved on.