The Clock Has Started

On November 22, 2010 the Ministry of the Environment started their 30-calendar-day decision period on our requests to have the proposed project elevated to require an individual environmental assessment.

This means that the MoE expects to decide within the next two weeks whether the proponent can build their proposed hydro-electric power station at the Bala Falls (the six possible MoE decisions are described beginning at the bottom of this page).

It was a more than year ago that the proponent released their environmental screening report. Due to the public safety issues, loss of hundreds of feet of the only public shoreline in the area, many major problems, unaddressed issues, wishful thinking, and important details ignored, the community response was massive.

Despite this strong public response, the proponent has since only repeated what they have already stated, with no new information.

Despite being requested by the MoE to study the economic impacts, the proponent’s economic impact study neglected to look at any of the negative impacts, did not interview any business owners or tourists, did not even visit Bala during the summer or even on a weekend to understand how important tourism and the Bala falls are to the area, did not provide any justification for the claims made, and ignored the fact that most of the income to the project would be government subsidies.

The proponent initiated a scenic flow committee, but there has not been any information made available or publicized about this.

If you feel that your concerns have not been addressed, then within the next week:

1. Write a brief letter to Mr. Adam Sanzo, the project evaluator at the Ministry of the Environment, and briefly summarize; your previous concerns, what information you have subsequently received or been able to determine, and what you still need to know. (It would be best not to just re-send your letter from a year ago, the MoE still has these on file.) Let him know that because the proponent has so actively avoided responding to our requests for information and clarification, an individual environmental assessment is required, as only this requires that the public have input into the Terms of Reference of what is to be studied, so we can finally be sure of having our many concerns addressed.
2. Send a copy of this letter to your Member of Provincial Parliament (the MPP for Parry Sound-Muskoka is Norm Miller, and the Minister of Tourism and Culture is Michael Chan) and Member of Parliament (MP) so they know your concerns as well. Let them know most of our previous municipal Councillors were not re-elected, largely due to this issue – this will be of interest to our provincial politicians as the provincial elections are mere months away (on October 6, 2011). Remind them that the top reason tourists come to Canada is to enjoy the natural scenery. Let them know that even though it has been a full year since an unprecedented number of requests for more information were submitted by the public in response to the proponent’s environmental screening report, the proponent has still not provided any new information.
3. Send a copy of this letter to the Township of Muskoka Lakes (it would be best to only send this to Chief Administrative Officer Walt Schmid, due to the current change of Councillors), so that he knows that our concerns are widespread.

   (Contact information for all of the above is here.)

4. Send a copy of this letter to your local newspapers. Let them know that this was a major election issue and most of the previous Councillors did not get re-elected. Let them know that the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario awarded us the prestigious Margaret and Nicholas Hill Cultural Heritage Landscape Award which “recognizes individuals or groups and their projects that have led to a heightened level of awareness and appreciation of Ontario’s significant landscapes.” Let them know claiming to be green doesn’t justify enriching a private developer and bankrupting the local area’s economy. Let them know the previous municipal government had no public consultation on giving away public lands and the use of our water – our primary assets.