January 5th, 2024

by Paige Desmond at the Kitchener Record News

Ontario Auditor General's damning report on aggregate industry confirms local concerns

The value for money audit found there isn't enough oversight of the aggregate industry by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and that pit operators often don't follow the rules.

A damning report on the aggregate industry released by Ontario's Auditor General in December confirms what many local politicians and residents have been saying for years — the industry is operating without enough oversight and pit operators often skirt the rules.

The value for money audit was conducted between January and August 2023 and involved a comprehensive review of data on the aggregate industry including files at the four district Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry branches and data from The Ontario Aggregate Resource Corporation.

The audit makes numerous recommendations that if implemented would represent an overhaul of the industry.

“The Auditor General's report was great,” North Dumfries Mayor Sue Foxton said. “It said all the things we've been saying for a hundred years.”

North Dumfries is home to about 50 gravel pits. It's hard to drive from one point in the township to another without passing at least one aggregate operation.

Foxton has long advocated for aggregate reform, including investigating whether there is a need for more pits. That's something municipalities aren't permitted to consider when a property owner applies for a zone change that paves the way for a pit to open.

Municipalities decide zone change applications, while the resources and forestry ministry issues licences under the Aggregate Resource Act and oversees the industry.

“They've thrown out licences like candy in a Santa Claus parade,” Foxton said. “A lot of licences have never been activated, there's land just sitting there.”

North Dumfries is mentioned in the auditor's report because of its large quantity of pits.

The report said the ministry's staff have no mechanism to consider cumulative impacts — the combined impacts of a concentration of pits — when it considers pit licence applications.

Cumulative impacts have been raised as an issue at the municipal level when councils consider zone changes, including in North Dumfries in Wilmot.

The Middle Street Pit in Wilmot is one example. It's the seventh approved pit on a short stretch of Snyder's Road East, surrounded largely by residential properties.

“The siting of multiple pits and quarries together can have cumulative (or combined) negative impacts on surrounding communities, local roads, and ecosystems (such as a loss of local natural areas) beyond the individual impacts of any one site alone.”

Considering cumulative impacts is not a new idea and has been implemented in B.C.

Residents and politicians alike have repeatedly raised concerns about the number of pits locally including how they're operated, impacts on the environment, rehabilitation of the sites and whether operators are following the rules.

The Auditor General's report confirms many of those concerns.

Report findings include:

• The ministry had a significant shortage of experienced aggregate inspectors, with 41 per cent of the 34 inspectors, as of May 2023, holding their designation for less than one year;

• That shortage of inspectors has contributed to low and declining inspection rates, with inspections decreasing 64 per cent between 2018 and 2022, a trend that started pre-pandemic and can’t be fully explained by COVID-19 restrictions;

• There is high noncompliance within the aggregate industry, with between 36 and 52 per cent of inspections completed deeming the operation satisfactory. Between 2018 and 2022 1,750 inspections identified operational noncompliance such as extracting below the approved depth or not conducting progressive rehab of the site;

• The number of failures to submit annual tonnage extraction quantities, pay annual fees or comply with extraction limits increased 74 per cent from 206 in 2018 to 359 in 2022;

• Despite high rates of noncompliance the ministry rarely sought charges;

• Fees paid to extract aggregate are likely too low to cover the costs of administering the program. Of the unpaid fees between 2018 and 2022 as of Dec. 31, 2022, 432 sites had not paid their annual aggregate fee for between one and five years, with 41 of those not paying for all five years;

• As of May 2023, 25 per cent of 1,030 operators within the four MNRF jurisdictions overseeing pits had not submitted their 2022 reports, more than seven months after the due date;

• A significant number of sites have not extracted anything within the past 10 years — 1,524 sites — and of those 257 hadn't extracted anything in 25 years. The sites sitting dormant for at least 10 years represent about 25,000 hectares of land, or about the size of Brampton, ON;

A 2016 study of the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area determined the area needed about 111 million tonnes annually for the next 20 years and estimated the area had reserves of 3,337 million tonnes in already-licensed quarries and pits, more than enough to meet the 20-year demand, yet pits are still being approved.

Rory Farnan is a member of the grassroots group Citizens For Safe Ground Water, which opposed the Hallman Pit in Wilmot's Shingletown.

“The Auditor General's report further reinforces CSGW's calls for a pause on all new gravel mining approvals until the province is able to guarantee the safety of our rural communities, and the natural resources that all of us rely upon,” he said.

The Reform Gravel Mining Coalition has been calling for a moratorium on the approval of new pits, giving time for a review of the aggregate industry in Ontario.

In a press release on the Auditor General's report the coalition said a moratorium should be declared until all 18 recommendations and 31 action items in the report are implemented.

“For too long, municipalities, First Nations and taxpayers have borne the economic, social and environmental costs of gravel mining. The Auditor General’s exposé of the crisis in aggregate management empowers local decision-makers and constituents across Ontario to say no to new pits and quarries in their communities.”

Fact facts on aggregates in Ontario:

• The average brick house requires 250 tonnes of aggregate or 12 truckloads to build;

• The average school requires 13,000 tonnes or 650 truckloads to build;

• The average hospital requires 94,000 tonnes or 3,760 truckloads to build;

• One kilometre of a four-lane highway requires 36,000 tonnes or 1,760 truckloads to build;

• Based on 2023 rates, aggregate operations paid $56.75 for the tonnes needed to build one average brick home, which is split between the host municipality, province, county or regional municipality and to a fund for rehabilitating legacy sites approved prior to the institution of the Aggregate Resource Act;

• Total aggregate tonnage extraction has increased from about 137 million tonnes in 2013 to about 160 million tonnes in 2022;

• Between 2010 and 2014 31 per cent of aggregate extracted was used for new roads and highways and 14 per cent for new homes, condos and apartments.