January 27, 2005

Report points to hidden costs

Recommendations in aggregate study include narrowing road-width

TORONTO

Ontario needs to revisit its policy on the aggregate industry and develop a strategy to reduce demand if social and environmental conflicts are to be avoided, a study concludes.

Research by the Pembina Institute, released Tuesday, finds the current approach ignores a wide range of hidden costs, such as the environmental damage and destruction of agricultural land caused by aggregate mining.

The report recommends enhanced recycling of aggregates and setting road and building-code standards that are less aggregate-intensive, for example, by slightly narrowing standard road-width.

‘Municipal councils are often frustrated because they have very little control of compliance at aggregate operations’

Gord Miller

“The current policy approach does not support rational choices between competing land uses on the basis of what best serves the long-term public interest,” the environmental think-tank’s study finds.

Aggregates — such as sand, gravel, clay, earth, shale and stone — are used in foundations and bricks of homes and other buildings as well as for roads, highways and bridges.

In an interview, report co-author Mark Winfield said aggregate extraction is “inherently problematic and destructive,” especially when it comes to adverse effects on ground-water resources.

The problem is particularly acute in southern Ontario.

“What’s brought this to a head is you’ve got this collision of intensely competing land uses that are basically incompatible with each other,” said Winfield.

“Clearly the level of social and environmental conflict is going to get more and more intense.”

In addition, Winfield said artificially low prices in the heavily regulated industry is a form of subsidy that does nothing to encourage conservation or alternatives to newly mined aggregate, he said.

“Effectively, the province is giving it away.”

Charging more for aggregate would likely reduce consumption, as has been shown in countries such as Sweden and Denmark or the U.K., where the price is 60 times higher than in Ontario, the study finds.

Ontario’s environmental commissioner, Gord Miller, has called on the province to reconsider trying to guarantee perpetual access to increasingly scarce aggregate resources before all other land-use policy objectives, the study notes.

“Aggregate operations are a chronic source of complaints,” Miller noted in his 2003-04 annual report.

“Municipal councils are often frustrated because they have very little control over compliance at aggregate operations, but are required by provincial policy to permit this land use.”

At the heart of any strategy must be an approach that lowers dependency on mined aggregate — either by reducing demand or by finding alternative materials, the report says.

It also recommends the province gather better information on current supplies and projections for demand and track more closely the 160-million tonnes of aggregate mined each year in Ontario.

“If you ask the question what happened to it, the province doesn’t have an answer,” said Winfield.

The Canadian Press

Print | Email | Comment