Plan to expand Stittsville quarry would remove wetlands

An Ottawa quarry owner has filed applications to effectively triple the operation's footprint, and the plan involves removing two wetlands that would be recreated years later when the digging is done.

It's a file that highlights two competing priorities in the province: the need for construction materials and the need to protect wetlands and other natural features.

R.W. Tomlinson Ltd.'s existing Stittsville quarry is one of eight licensed sites, belonging to several companies, that hug Highway 7 in the city's rural west. Not all are active.

The trucks from those industrial sites are close to four-lane highways they can take their products where they're needed — to build roads, bridges, public buildings and homes.

But they and their bedrock are also tucked between forests and wetlands, including the protected Goulbourn wetland complex. 

In fact, two wetlands on the Tomlinson expansion site — one 10.7 hectares and the other 4.6 hectares — have lost their designations in the past two years. They no longer have status as provincially significant wetlands.  

Tomlinson's expansion plan

CBC News made several requests to R.W. Tomlinson Ltd. for an interview about the Stittsville quarry project, and received only a short statement. 

"Tomlinson Group has been collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders and regulatory bodies to navigate the approvals process for its Stittsville quarry," it stated. "Tomlinson has a longstanding reputation for environmental stewardship, and remains committed to upholding the highest operational standards."

The aggregates industry is heavily regulated, so applications for quarries require multiple steps and studies. Approval can take many years. More than a dozen comprehensive documents the company submitted to the City of Ottawa and to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) lay out the key details. 

Tomlinson, a local company with some 1,500 employees, already operates a quarry on Jinkinson Road, parallel to Highway 7. It's been taking steps in recent years to expand onto the adjacent 121.7-hectare property where it now operates asphalt and concrete plants. 

It has applied to the MNR for a licence to extract some three million tonnes a year, blasting bedrock for crushed stone or materials used in concrete and asphalt. The planning report it submitted estimates the site holds some 80 million tonnes of bedrock, the majority below the water table.

Public consultations through the ministry closed in May.

Now, Tomlinson's applications to rezone the land and amend the official plan to allow mineral extraction are also heading through municipal approvals.

The City of Ottawa is accepting comments until Nov. 20, and the file is scheduled to head to the agricultural and rural affairs committee soon after.

Construction needs

For decades, provincial policy has recognized that quarries and pits should be located near where the materials are used. The new provincial planning statement that took effect Oct. 20 declares they should be as "close to markets as possible."

After all, gravel and stone is heavy, and trucking it long distances costs a lot and produces emissions. Trucks from Tomlinson's Stittsville quarry travel a short distance on Jinkinson Road and straight onto Highway 7.

That proximity to markets has been a key message for the Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, the group that advocates for the industry. 

It also declined an interview and would not speak to the Tomlinson project specifically. Executive director Michael McSweeney pointed out in an email that aging public infrastructure across the province needs repair, and the Ford government has a 10-year plan worth well over $100 billion for highways, hospitals and schools.

Ottawa itself has several major projects that need stone, gravel and sand, McSweeney added, including the new Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital, Stage 2 of light rail and the LeBreton Flats redevelopment.

One kilometre of a four-lane highway takes 36,000 tonnes or 1,800 truckloads of aggregates, the association wrote.

Two wetlands lost status

Tomlinson's plan is to expand its quarry over seven phases, starting with a section that includes the 10.7-hectare "western" wetland.

That wetland was re-evaluated in 2023 by a certified evaluator at a firm hired by Tomlinson. Using the updated scoring system rolled out by the Ontario government in January 2023, the wetland didn't hit the 600 points required to remain "provincially significant" and was among the 55 hectares the City of Ottawa and MNR have reclassified on their maps.

• Ottawa wetlands cut from 'provincially significant' list
• Wetland in west Ottawa lost status after land was cleared

The wetland did hit the maximum score for the section of the scorecard related to the movement of water, however. It's located in the Flowing Creek catchment, which flows southeast toward the rural village of Richmond and eventually into the Jock River.

The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) is reviewing Tomlinson's application and said it couldn't share its comments until they're formally submitted. Generally speaking, the RVCA wrote in an email that wetlands act as sponges, absorbing water in floods and releasing it in droughts. 

"The RVCA always recommends that the hydrologic function of a wetland be preserved as part of any land use decision," it wrote.

Meanwhile, a smaller wetland at the south of the site was determined to be undeserving of the "provincially significant" designation in an Ontario Land Tribunal decision in January 2022.

Those 15.3 hectares of wetlands, along with 30 hectares of woodlands, are set to be lost for the expanded quarry. Tomlinson has laid out plans to re-create a 19.5-hectare wetland and 44.5 hectares of forest an unspecified number of years later. 

"As a result of the proposed rehabilitation, the integrity, biodiversity and ecosystem services of the area will be maintained or enhanced in some cases while making available high quality bedrock resources close to market areas," states the planning report prepared for Tomlinson.

Rehabilitating wetlands

That kind of rehabilitation plan is required for every licence under the Aggregates Act. Quarries are considered a temporary use of land.

More than 5,000 old pits or quarries have been rehabilitated since statistics started being collected, points out the industry association. Ottawa examples on its website include the go-kart track in Stittsville, a housing development near Osgoode around a lake in a former quarry, and the popular dog-walking spot at Bruce Pit.

Its members often work with Ducks Unlimited and have created wetlands where hundreds of species have been identified, wrote McSweeney.

Rebecca Rooney, a biology professor and founder of the wetland lab at the University of Waterloo, agreed people have been restoring wetlands in North America for a century and have learned a lot.

"The science has really come a long way," Rooney said. "That said, restored wetlands, even 50 years after they've been restored, research has shown they're still not performing at the same level of function as natural wetlands."

Plus, someone has to be monitoring those wetlands decades later, Rooney said. 

In a December 2023 report about how the MNR manages the aggregates industry, Ontario's auditor general found the government didn't have processes to ensure sites were promptly rehabilitated when extraction was done, and recommended the government put them in place.