December 4, 2023

Latest Developments at Lanark Highlands Township Council - Committee of the Whole

Presented on Tuesday November 28th

Friends of Lanark Highlands Presentation to Committee of the Whole

November 28, 2023

Good evening, I am Geoff Mason, Lanark Highlands resident and Chair of Friends of Lanark Highlands.

I would like to begin by thanking Council for allowing us to be part of tonight’s agenda. We are glad to have the opportunity to share information that we have learned recently.

After consulting with a number of highly qualified geoscientists we worry that an environmental disaster looms. These experts warn us that Barbers Lake and Long Sault Creek could become dead zones, choked with radioactive silt migrating from the site.  Inevitably the toxins leaving the site would poison surface water, the water table and the watershed all the way to the Mississippi River and beyond.

This information terrifies us, but you will not find it in the reports prepared for Arnott Brothers or Cavanagh Construction. At public meetings their “experts” said that they had never heard that there was uranium in the area. Prompted by high local radon readings, a Google search led us to an abundance of frightening information.

Lanark Highlands will need to approve the necessary Official Plan amendments, raising the issue of Township liability if the pit goes horribly wrong.  

The “Barbers Lake Pluton” is a rock formation underlying the proposed excavation site. It is unusual for its very high concentration of uranium and yet the pit studies report no testing for the presence of uranium or the toxic products caused by its inevitable decay. This breakdown of uranium sends dangerous byproducts into the material which has covered the bedrock since the last ice age. Excavating this sand and gravel poses a real threat of releasing contamination into the environment.

Dr. R M Easton (Senior Geoscience Leader, Earth Resources and Geoscience Mapping Section, Ontario Geological Survey) is familiar with the Barbers Lake Pluton, having done field research at the site. In response to our inquiries, he informed us that samples of Barbers Lake granite have been reported in the Ontario Geological Survey (research by J Cutts 2014) as having uranium levels more than 23 times higher than average, with thorium levels up to 14 times higher than average. Thorium is one of the toxic elements released as uranium decays. Dr. Easton states that the high radon gas levels measured locally are likely caused by the high uranium and thorium concentrations in the bedrock. He suggests that the material covering the bedrock must be analyzed for uranium and thorium content to confirm that the sand and gravel covering the bedrock is safe to be extracted and used. Also, he expresses concerns that a Health and Safety issue may already exist for those working in the McKinnon Pit, which has been in operation since 2009.

The residential well closest to the McKinnon Pit has recently been tested and its water was found unfit for use because of unacceptably high uranium levels. In fact, it has been tested twice and failed both times. The second test was conducted by the hydrogeologist hired to prepare Arnott Brothers application for the McKinnon Pit expansion.

A graduate of Waterloo University, Dr. Kevin Morin became a Professional Geoscientist in B.C. and is recognized internationally as an expert on drainage from industrial sites.

Dr. Morin expressed concerns about the harmful effects caused by fine particle sediment that must be washed off the sand and gravel before it can be trucked from the site. Studies done for Cavanagh’s application make it clear that all water leaving the site will go to Barbers Lake. Almost half will run off directly into the lake, with the remainder going through neighbouring wetlands or Long Sault Creek on its way to the lake. Dr. Morin’s expert opinion is that this water entering the lake will contain very fine sediment that will spread out in the wetlands, creek and lake. He foresees the lake becoming a “mud pit”, with the wetlands and creek becoming choked off by a buildup of sediment. “To clean this water from suspended particles, one needs a water treatment plant.” No water treatment plant is included in Cavanagh’s proposal.

Lanark Highlands has already seen something like this. Discharge of fine particle sediment from the Tatlock quarry contaminated Murray Lake, leading to lengthy and costly litigation.

Morin was disappointed that the reports for Cavanagh did not include “Sieve Analyses”, an inexpensive method for determining the concentration of fine silt contained in the material to be extracted. Without knowing this concentration, it is not possible to properly plan for protecting the surrounding environment.

Of course, this isn’t just dirt; it may well be radioactive. He points out that uranium decays continually, creating other elements such as thorium, radium, lead, polonium, radon and others. Some of these are even more toxic than uranium. Even worse than the fact that uranium decay cannot be stopped, it happens much more quickly when more oxygen enters its environment. As sand and gravel are extracted more oxygen would be introduced, accelerating the rate at which uranium and its byproducts are released. This could lead to an environmental disaster as the watershed becomes contaminated with radioactive material. Cleanup would be impossible.

Morin also suggests that the two ponds to be created as excavation goes well below the water table will be warmed by direct sunlight. The water that they discharge will be much warmer than the lake, wetlands and creek presently contain, elevating the temperature of these neighboring water bodies. Much of the existing aquatic life will not survive this temperature change, especially with the accompanying load of fine sediment. 

Dr. Morin is skeptical of the claim in Cavanagh’s application that the operation will result in “no dewatering”. He states “You cannot go below the water table without having to remove the water.”

Supporting the opinions of both Easton and Morin, is Eric Dugdale, a former Perth resident who studied the Barbers Lake granite body in his Bachelor’s Thesis while preparing to become a geologist. He believes that the uranium emerging from the bedrock will have decayed into clay like minerals where it meets the sand and gravel above it.  The uranium’s toxicity is presently contained by this clay like layer, but if the overburden is excavated these clays will erode rapidly, releasing their uranium content into the water table.

Dugdale goes on to state that extracting sand and gravel as proposed will kill all life in Barbers Lake through either the elevation of the lake’s temperature (as outlined also by Dr. Morin), or by fine sediments spreading out to blanket the lake’s bottom, suffocating the plants and filter feeders such as clams that support the food chain. Like Dr. Easton he asks what study has been done on the presence of uranium in the material proposed for extraction. Like Dr. Morin he asks how the fine sediment will be kept out of the lake and how the water temperature in the lake will be protected.

When it comes to flaws in the studies prepared to support these pit licence applications many of us were bothered by what we saw as glaring shortcomings in the Natural Environment Reports, so Friends of Lanark Highlands used money raised by our supporters to hire Mark Heaton to review those studies.

Mr. Heaton is an ecologist with more than 30 years’ experience working for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. He produced a Preliminary Ecological Opinion for each proposal, pointing out a significant number of omissions which should be corrected to meet provincial standards.

He tells us that in both the McKinnon Pit expansion application and the Cavanagh application the studies completed did not comply with the requirements of the Natural Heritage Reference Manual. Wetlands on the sites, and surrounding the sites, should have been fully evaluated by someone certified under the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System. This was not done and the wetlands were merely dismissed as “unevaluated”, suggesting that they did not merit any further study. The Reference Manual states that the planning authority (in this case Lanark Highlands) should ensure that a wetland evaluation is undertaken by the proponent when a wetland is unevaluated, but has characteristics that would make it significant. In this case the need for a full wetland evaluation is made more urgent because of the presence of a threatened species, Blanding’s turtles. Local residents photographed theses turtles moving to and from Cavanagh’s site this spring. The onsite wetlands they were travelling towards are in the extraction zone, and are slated to be destroyed if the pit proceeds.

Mr. Heaton points out that several of the wetlands on Cavanagh’s site are omitted from the wetland constraint mapping, but are clearly shown in the Archaeology Reports. These wetlands qualify for Category 2 classification and the land between them, serving as an essential movement corridor should have been identified as Category 3.

Finally, Mr. Heaton states that the Significant Wildlife Habitat assessments for Cavanagh were incomplete and misleading. The Natural Environment Report did not include detailed results of field studies. Amphibian call counts were also absent. Ecological Land Classification associations with Significant Wildlife Habitat were also not completed. This part of the studies done for Cavanagh’s application must be considered as incomplete, with important required work yet to be done.

When aggregate developers want to locate the best possible extraction sites in Lanark County one of the resources they turn to is the Aggregate Resources Inventory for Lanark County, published by the Ontario Geological Survey in 2013. This document shows the location of 810 hectares of “primary resource” aggregate, the material with the best economic potential.

What is often ignored is the fact that this document states that less than 35% of the mapped aggregate can be considered for development because of physical, environmental or cultural constraints. In other words, 65% should not be developed, according to this report from the Ontario Geological Survey.

We feel strongly that the potential hazards that would result if Cavanagh’s proposal were to go ahead place that site firmly in the 65% that should never be excavated.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to appear here this evening.

Download the Word Document

Slide Show Presentation