Last week, I took up the fact that the Minister responsible for handing out Zoning Orders, Rob Flack, was engaged in a formal consultation with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte about Picton Terminals’ expansion plans. 

That raised the question, what will that consultation turn up? 

A formal consultation is a serious matter. It means what gets said cannot just be ignored. On the other hand, the Minister may be trying to find, or forge, some common ground between what Picton Terminals wants and what the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte might want. 

Luckily, Chief R. Donald Maracle sent a source a copy of the four-page letter he posted to the Environmental Registry addressing the County’s application for an MZO for Picton Terminals.

The letter details MBQ concerns around the expansion of the activities at the port. These address the relationship between the land and water, the uses to which they are put, and the consequences for those with traditional and treaty rights.

The Chief writes that under an MZO, land uses already identified as a threat to the First Nation’s rights “will be allowed without proper environmental consideration or oversight” and “without proper consultation.”

The letter details the history of the Terminals’ lack of regard for the environment, and the government’s failure to enforce its own regulations. The opening paragraph offers an example. 

In March, 2020, Fisheries and Oceans granted Ben Doornekamp and Picton Terminals permission to infill a section of shoreline on Picton Bay. The permit warns that because infilling the shoreline “results in serious harm to fish,” failure to comply with the terms of the permission “may result in prosecution under the Fisheries Act.” It allows for the “destruction of a maximum of 620m2 of fish habitat.”

Apparently, the Doornekamps destroyed almost five times that amount. “3000m2 was infilled without approval or consequence,” notes the Chief. 

“The lack of consequence, in relation to the infill, is an example of discriminatory law enforcement. One of our community members was charged for a much smaller infill and ordered to remove it and Picton Terminals was not.”

The case has been the same with the MNR’s letters permitting rock quarrying — these strictly limit excavations to those required for port improvements, such as a road or a storage structure, yet quarrying goes far beyond what is required. Eight years after the MNR granted permission for excavations to build a covered outdoor storage structure, it still had not been created, while the quarrying was ongoing for years.

Without approval or consequence. 

When it comes to the MZO, therefore, the Chief is skeptical. “The MBQ have concerns that land uses previously identified as a potential risk to our treaty rights will be allowed without proper environmental consideration or oversight and without proper consultation with our First Nation.”

“The proposal posted on the Environmental Registry … continues to overlook the expressed interests and potential negative impacts on MBQ traditional and treaty rights.”

“Once again,” he notes patiently, “we would like to share our concerns.”

These are all commonsensical and have been expressed many, many times, by the MBQ as by those with the slightest regard for the waters of Picton Bay.

Impact to fish and fish habitat is the first listed concern, closely followed by dredging and disturbance of historical contaminants in the sediment on shore and on the lakebed “likely to impact fish and fish habitat, water quality, and the entire ecosystem.”

“The MBQ rely on the fish in the Bay of Quinte, Picton Bay and Lake Ontario, for sustenance and subsistence. Our community carries out commercial, and traditional fish harvesting, and the Bay of Quinte is home to a significant recreational fishery.”

 “MBQ have high rates of cancer, an incline in childhood cancers.” Further, notes the Chief, in perhaps the understatement of the century, the MBQ “have historic and ongoing challenges around clean drinking water.” 

Increases in shipping traffic will create more disturbance, as well as the possibility of introducing invasive species to the waters. “Any alteration to the fish we rely on, including the impacts of invasive species, will have an adverse impact on our traditional fish harvesting rights.”

Then there’s the issue of what’s being shipped. Container shipping elevates contamination risks. “Unanticipated contamination events pose a huge risk to all travelled water bodies and the surrounding lands. Beyond in-water impacts the MBQ are additionally concerned with the design of the shipping access road from the cliff to the dock; accidents could occur during icy events which could cause spills into the water.”

“The risk of contamination would not exist if just not allowed.”

There’s also the fact that container shipping is known to facilitate human trafficking. Inspection of container contents is lax. 

The other issues are as obvious and straightforward. Picton Terminals’ long history, for example, of improper and inadequate bulk cargo storage and poor management of stormwater runoff. The Chief cites an important 2019 XCG Environmental evaluation of the impact of PT’s activities on the environment that found “stormwater is now slowly infiltrated into the ground…[with] slow dissipation into Picton Bay.”

“Ongoing monitoring of the groundwater demonstrates relatively unchanged levels of contamination.”

“The proposed, and MECP-required, closed storage method for salt has not proven to completely seal the product … fragmentation in the excavated rock pit provides pathways for leaching. Further, open storage of other deleterious materials such as bauxite is not addressed and is allowed near the cliff edge.”

The concerns the Chief details in this letter cannot, apparently, be stated clearly enough or often enough. One only wonders what the response of the MBQ would be to the rock quarry that the MZO would permit. We don’t know because rock quarrying is not mentioned in the MZO application. 

What is clear is the MBQ response to the MZO itself. A single sentence repeated throughout the letter sums it up: “Risk of contamination would not exist if just not allowed.”