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Water protection is absent in aggregate rules, says Mulmur advocate

April 29, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Water gives life.

That’s as well known as the fact that maintaining the integrity of a healthy water supply is paramount.

The Mono Mulmur Citizens’ Coalition and the Town of Mono hosted a public meeting on April 18 that provided an overview of watersheds from the Headwaters to the Great Lakes and how they work as a complete system.

Safe and suitable water ensures Mono’s future. That was the thrust of the town hall meeting held at the municipality’s council chamber.

Stephen Middleton, a coalition board member and Mulmur resident, said Ontario was world-renowned for protecting the watershed, beginning with its conservation legislation dating back to the 1940s.

Numerous different groups and governing bodies focused on environmental issues fractured the effort.

“Today there is no integrated method of looking at the current health of watersheds in Ontario and, basically, looking at the cumulative effect of various things that we do as a society on those watersheds and what it means for the future,” Middleton said.

Of 886 watersheds within this jurisdiction, more than 50 per cent are rated in poor to fair condition. The things the government has been adopting, such as Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, remove environmental protective measures.

Middleton said the legislation reduces impediments to development that were designed to protect watershed health.

“We have a threat, but we have no way of looking at it, and nobody is considering, also, that we are going into a period of unprecedented climate change,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot more stress on these water systems and what we are doing right now is actually decreasing the protections of them.”

The April 18 town hall gathering in Mono was a venue to discuss some of the things that can be done to ensure the integrity of the watershed and offset the stresses on the water resource.

“Water, air, and healthy soil are going to be our most precious natural resources,” Middleton said.

It seems the only way some choose to value the aquifers that sustain millions of people is how the land is worth as quarried aggregate. An economic evaluation of what it would cost to replicate what’s provided by local aquifers with water from, say, the Great Lakes would show an immense value.

There is no method for looking at the cumulative effects of a compromised aquifer 50 years from now.

“The planning and the care for a precious resource is really kind of absent,” Middleton said.

The Aggregate Resources Act specifically forbids municipalities from asking for a demonstration of need for gravel from a particular place, regardless of how much is available in the area already, he said.

“Not only is it damaging to aquifers, you can’t even ask why you need to take this gravel,” he said. “We need gravel. I get that, but the need to take this gravel from this place, that question is not permitted.”

The part of the legislation that’s a voice for water protection directly contradicts the part that deals with aggregate extraction.

“It’s a paradox I haven’t been able to reconcile in my head yet,” Middleton said.

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