Save the Bala Falls

Quick Summary

1. The Minister of the Environment needs to hear directly from you that:
   • The environmental assessment for the proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala falls is not following the required process.
   • The proponent has made major and environmentally-significant changes for which they do not have approval.
   • The proponent is not properly testing for hazardous waste at the proposed construction site.
   • He and his Minister’s office need to look into this to see for themselves that the proponent is wrong in claiming there have been “no changes”.

   Click here to start an e-mail to the Minister.
    

2. Great news, the Township of Muskoka Lakes Councillors voted to reject the proponent’s inadequate and self-serving offer. So now over 100 trees will be saved, and the Township’s parking lots will remain open to the public.
    
3. More great news, the Township of Muskoka Lakes Councillors also voted to reject CP Rail’s request to use the south half of the Don’s Bakery parking lot for the next two months. So now the public will have full use of the parking lot over the May long weekend.

Detail

What you can do next to help Save the Bala Falls
It is important that you write at least a brief letter to the Minister of the Environment, as described in 1 above. If you’d like to write a more detailed letter, click here to start an e-mail to the Honourable Glen Murray, Minister of the Environment and let him know that:

1. Swift River Energy Limited’s current plan for their proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala falls does not conform to the environmental approval they received.
    
2. You are therefore making a Part II Order request, because the proponent;
   • Has not adequately checked the site’s subsurface soil and groundwater for contamination or hazardous materials left buried there when Bala #2 Generating Station was demolished over 40 years ago.
   • Does not have environmental approval to; triple the area of the aquatic habitat destroyed during construction, build a gravel road across the base of the Bala north falls, increase the footprint of their proposed building by 48% and increase the height of the roof from the level of the road to 20′ above it, block all the flow of water down the Bala north falls which would both contravene the Muskoka River Water Management Plan and create a flooding risk during the proposed construction, or to install a silt curtain infringing on the Type 1 Walleye habitat at the base of the Bala north falls.
   • Must provide a rooftop look-out as they committed.
   • Did not present any of these plans in their 2012 Addendum, nor make them known to the public, so these would all be environmentally-significant changes to their 2012 Addendum.
      
3. Or you can omit the above detail and just reference the letter we sent and ask that the Minister’s office see for themselves that the proponent plans major changes to their Addendum.
    
4. Be sure to include your name and address, and that you request a response.
    

Township of Muskoka Lakes Committee of the Whole
On Tuesday April 21, 2015 the Township of Muskoka Lakes Committee of the Whole met to consider this report from the Interim Chief Administrative Officer which provides the;

• Minutes of the previous three meetings of the Bala Falls Hydro Working Committee (pages 11 to 22).
• Final offer from the proponent for their desperate need to use Township lands for construction staging (pages 26 to 30).
• Recommendations from the Working Committee to the Committee of the Whole and resulting Resolution for voting (pages 9 and 10).

Remarkably, the proponent got the Working Committee to believe that it would be better for Bala for the proponent to:

• Cut down 100 trees rather than two (our article is here).
• Use three prime Township properties in Bala for their construction staging, rather than just one Crown land property.

We have the very good news to report that Council voted to reject the Working Committee’s recommendations (though by only a single vote) and therefore did not accept the proponent’s entirely self-serving offer. So rather than spreading their construction mess all over Bala, the proponent would need to use only the four Crown land properties the MNR has made available to them. Thank you Township of Muskoka Lakes Councillors; Barrick-Spearn, Currie, Harding, Kruckel, and Nishikawa, for supporting Bala and for not allowing the proponent to take over the whole place for years.
 

CP Rail
With only a few days notice, and without consulting the Ward A Councillors who represent the area’s businesses and people that would be most impacted, CP Rail requested to use the south half of the Don’s Bakery parking lot for staging their equipment for maintenance of the CP Rail bridge over the Bala north channel during all of May and June (in the past, such work has been done during off-peak times).

In a stark example that they do not understand or care about Bala’s businesses and visitors, Township staff reported they “cannot see any significant use of this lot prior to July 1, 2015” and recommended Township approve this request without considering any other schedule or staging locations.

We have the very good news to report that Township Council did not approve this recommendation (though again, by only a single vote), so the entire Don’s Bakery parking lot will be available throughout the summer. Thank you to Councillors Currie, Harding, Kruckel, McTaggart, and Nishikawa for supporting Bala.
 

Proponent not pursuing environmental contamination concerns
Two years ago, the proponent drilled exploratory boreholes on the proposed construction site, to test the subsurface soil and groundwater for contaminants left when the Bala #2 Generating Station was demolished in 1972:

• One test showed contamination which exceeds Ministry of the Environment standards, however the proponent has apparently not done the recommended re-testing.
• But the major concern is that all exploratory boreholes were drilled upstream of the potential contamination, so were drilled in the wrong place. To ensure that the proposed construction would not release contamination to the Moon River and that hazardous wastes would not be in the excavated rock which would be dumped somewhere in Muskoka, the Ministry of the Environment should require the proponent to drill boreholes at and west of the location where the Bala #2 Generating Station was.

Additional detail is here.
 

May 2015 long weekend – save the date
We’ll be holding a fun event in Bala on Saturday May 16, 2015. More details to follow.
 

These e-Newsletters
Sign yourself up to receive these e-Newsletters here, and let your friends and family know that they can sign themselves up at the link at the top-right at SaveTheBalaFalls.com.
 

Save the Bala Falls

1. On July 21, 2015 we delegated to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Committee of the Whole on the issue of the proposed Muskoka Road 169 shoulder widening. Our presentation is here.
    
2. On March 13, 2015 we delegated to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Council, our presentation is here.
    
3. On March 12, 2015 we delegated to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Committee of the Whole, our presentation is here.
    
4. On February 13, 2015 we delegated to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Council, our presentation is here.
    
5. On January 21, 2015 there was a presentation on Risk Management to the District Municipality of Muskoka’s Engineering & Public Works Committee, the presentation is here.
    
6. On December 16, 2014 we had the opportunity to present to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Commitee of the Whole, our presentation is here.

Extortion: “Obtaining of property from another induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under colour of official right”

The proponent has offered the Township $100,000 to take over Township owned heritage properties to use for their proposed two years of construction and staging. Township Councillors and staff have been meeting with the proponent behind closed doors for the past month to cut a deal, apparently under the premise that if the Township doesn’t provide their lands, the developer will destroy Margaret Burgess Park.

Yet, the Ministry of Natural Resources has confirmed that the proponent does not have approval to proceed as the MNR is still reviewing the proponent’s plans and specifications and we do not know if, or to what degree, Margaret Burgess Park would be used.

The proposed project keeps growing. The current plans are vastly different, and much larger than what was included in the proponent’s Environmental Screening Report and Addendum. Margaret Burgess Park was not even mentioned, let alone evaluated, in the original Environmental Screening Report. It was tossed in to the Addendum, without addressing the extent of the impact or the mitigation required.

This should be grounds alone for cancelling the project – but it is very clear that the Ontario government currently has no intention of exercising its legal right and obligation to insist that the project adhere to and not extend beyond the approvals granted to date.

So, is Margaret Burgess Park really at risk. Or is the proponent trying to scare us into letting them; use the Township’s Precambrian Shield parking lot, south half of the Don’s Bakery parking lot, and to permanently ruin the Township’s Portage Landing land south of their proposed construction site, all because they desperately need all these for their proposed construction. Will the Township give up our land, our heritage and our parking for fear of losing access to Margaret Burgess Park during the proposed construction? Is this extortion?

Call to action
Now is the time that democracy demands we speak up.

1. E-mail your MPP (contact information here) and the Premier, Minister of the Environment and Minister of Natural Resources (send to all three by clicking here). No need to write a long letter, the detail has already been provided to them. Let them know it is unacceptable for a private developer to:
   • Change their plans and build without environmental approval.
   • Win a contract by making promises, and then break those promises so they can make more profit while making the important in-water recreation in Bala more dangerous.

   Be sure to ask for a response, and include your mailing address.
    

2. Write a Letter to the Editor of your local paper.
    
3. Let your family, friends and neighbours know that Ontario’s Liberal government would be paying this private developer a $100,000,000 subsidy for this mess, but can instead get out of it all for free. Now is the time to avoid the huge cancellation charges from contracts gone bad. But this will only happen if everybody – family, friends and neighbours – sends the e-mails.

Detail
The proponent’s new construction plans would:

1. Destroy three times the fish habitat in the Bala north channel for which they have environmental approval.
    
2. Block all the flow of the Bala north falls, harming even more fish habitat and contravening the Muskoka River Water Management Plan. Flow through the Bala north channel during the proposed construction is also required to handle high flows which do occur in the months June through March, so the proponent’s new construction plan also risks flooding Lake Muskoka.
    
3. Start work during environmentally-restricted time periods and build a temporary gravel road at the base of the Bala north falls, even though they do not have environmental approval for either.
    
4. Risk damaging the Bala north dam and if this happened, the proponent – who has no assets, no income, and no employees – would likely abandon the project, leaving the province (us Ontario taxpayers) to pay for their mess.
   • In contrast, the District Municipality of Muskoka has required the proponent to provide a $2,000,000 Letter of Credit in case the proponent’s construction damages the District’s bridge over the Bala north channel. The Ministry of Natural Resources refuses to require the proponent to provide any such protection.
      
5. Tower more than 20′ over Muskoka Road 169 even though the proponent’s 2005 proposal, 2007 public information centre, and 2012 Addendum all showed that their building’s roof would not be above the road – so passers-by could see down the Moon River and perhaps stop and stay a while.And note that:
   • These drawings for past commitments were all for proposals which the proponent said would be built solely on Crown land.
   • The proponent’s 2012 Addendum (which describes their current Alternative 1A proposal) specifically stated a vertical turbine would be used (Sections 4.6.1, 6.2.2, and 6.2.3), and while their current Alternative 1A building would therefore be higher than their now-abandoned Option 2 building, they committed that both proposals would not be higher than the road. The proponent showed this on pdf page 29 in the Appendicies of their 2012 Addendum, where you can see the roof of Alternative 1A would be 30′ above the Moon River (which is the level of Muskoka Road 169) and Option 2 would be 16.6′ above the Moon River.

Also:

• The Bracebridge Falls generating station has a 110′-long concrete breakwater to protect their boat docks from the fast and turbulent water exiting that station, and the swimming area is safe as it is 1,000′ away.
  • But the proposed Bala station would have more than 3½ times the flow, nothing to protect the adjacent boating, and the in-water recreation would be just a few feet away. Allowing (by the MNR and MoE) and creating (by the proponent) this situation would be irresponsibly dangerous.
     
• For their 2012 environmental approval, the proponent stated their station would have a rooftop viewing platform and also that they would not impact the Township’s heritage-designated Portage Landing land directly south of the proposed construction site.
  • But now the proponent says they would provide a rooftop lookout only if; they can cut down over 100 trees on the Township’s Portage Landing, pile it 15′-high with rocks, and drive trucks through it for two years. the proponent is both reneging on their commitments and attempting to bully and extort the Township.

The proponent’s changes are all self-serving, to increase their profits, at the expense of Bala.

We have detailed these environmental concerns to the Ministry of the Environment (more here), but the Ministry does not respond. This is not the transparent and accessible government Premier Wynne has promised (Globe and Mail article here).

We have therefore sent letters to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of the Environment.

The provincial government’s choices are simple
As we state in our letter to Premier Wynne, as complicated as the ten year history of this proposed project has been, the choices now are simple:

1. Require the proponent to honour the commitments they made; in their 2005 proposal, and for their environmental approvals.
    
2. If the proponent will not honour their commitments, then the MNR’s RFP is very clear; the proponent’s opportunity can be cancelled, with no cancellation costs payable as it was the proponent’s choice to provide inaccurate information and to renege on their commitments.

John Wright

John Wright, of North 45 Communications has created this excellent video, narrated by Mike Kirby.

Doing the right thing

Brian McDonald, Certified Arborist, of Muskoka Lakes Tree Service, was contracted by the proponent to cut down trees for the proposed construction project. But once Brian learned about the issue, he refused to do the work. You can read Brian’s thoughtful letter to Bala supporter Tim McDonald (no relation) in this MooseFM story. Contact Brian at 705 641-9223, to thank him for having high morals and business ethics – and if you need any responsible tree work done. A previous MooseFM article about the District Manager for Davey Tree Service’s Muskoka North branch refusing to cut down trees for the proponent is here.

Recent articles

There are some new articles at SaveTheBalaFalls.com (on the right, at the top, under Recent Articles). The broadening community support is shown by the many published articles of support, newest are at the top here.

DamNation

The documentary DamNation is about removing unnecessary dams in the United States. The situation they discuss is different than in Bala, but it does show that governments can make mistakes and people can right this. A trailer for the movie is here, you can buy the movie on iTunes, and it is currently available on Canadian Netflix.

1. Because the proponent is reneging on proposal commitments they made, we sent this letter to the Minister of Natural Resources.
    
2. Because the proponent’s construction plans do not conform to the environmental assessment approval they received, we sent this letter to the Minister of the Environment.
    
3. The Premier needs to know that we’re not getting the “transparent, accessible government that the people of Ontario deserve”, so we sent this letter to Premier Wynne.

We have prepared this document with some questions and answers.