Last week opened with blasting at Picton Terminals. Picton Terminals is always blasting — it runs an unoffical rock quarry — but last Tuesday morning the sound was cataclysmic. Windowpanes rattled at houses around the bay.

It was as though PT were celebrating. Its deal with Council was finally done. What better way to mark the occasion than to start blowing up the escarpment?

Just a few days before, on October 8, Council found it could not plausibly delay its terrible, horrible, no good, very bad settlement deal any longer. It voted 7-6 in favour.

We can only hope that tepid approval vote works in the County’s favour when the time comes to ask Minister Callandra for a special zoning order. 

The settlement deal will wither on the vine if the County’s bid for a Ministerial Zoning Order, or MZO, for Picton Terminals is unsuccessful.

What is an MZO exactly? It’s a way of bypassing all normal planning procedures and instead handing MX-Extractive-Industrial zoning to PT and all its lands on White Chapel Road on a silver platter.

The new zoning will apply to all the agricultural and residential lands PT manages to assemble by December 26. 

Minister’s orders are used to re-zone municipal land in ways that serve priorities of the province. Minister Callandra lists those priorities as housing and elder care homes. But who cares. The County is going to ask for an MZO for Picton Terminals so it can continue to quarry rock and open an international container shipping port. Why it is doing so is anybody’s guess. Those who voted for this deal, over and over again, have never once explained why they think it is a good idea. I don’t think they can.

As far as I can tell, Council doesn’t want to have to try to contain or regulate Picton Terminals. That would require going to court to enforce its bylaws. It sees the MZO as an opportunity to hand that responsibility off to the province. Cheap and easy. What’s not to like? 

MZO in fact means WYH. Wash Your Hands. 

The dramatic blasting and scaling of the limestone cliffs on Picton Bay last week suggest what we can all now expect.

When we asked the County whether Picton Terminals had a permit for exploding the cliffs, the County said it had no idea. “The municipality does not have jurisdiction for activities occurring near the waterline and blasting rock from the cliff face. We agree that you should reach out to Quinte Conservation and the Ministry of Natural Resources for their perspective on these issues,” said spokesperson Mark Kerr.

Mr. Kerr then quoted a sentence of the not-yet-in-force settlement deal, which reads, “the Owner acknowledges the importance of respecting the natural environment and shoreline of its property outside the area reserved for port operations.” 

He did not quote the very next sentence: “and agrees not to make alterations to the natural escarpment and shoreline without Quinte Conservation approvals or whomever has jurisdiction.”

Perhaps the limestone escarpment Ben Doornekamp was exploding for all to see on Tuesday morning was part of “the area reserved for port operations.” Of course. Everyone knows that to operate a port you must blow away the cliff face without a permit. Naturally.

Still, the settlement agreement states the Owner agrees not to make alterations to the natural escarpment and shoreline without the requisite approvals.

I took the County’s advice and turned to Quinte Conservation and the Ministry of Natural Resources.

MNR said it had no jurisdiction over blasting at Picton Terminals.

“Currently, there is no regulatory role for MNR,” said spokesperson Mike Fenn. “However, Picton Terminals routinely keeps our office updated on their development plans to understand whether an Aggregate Resources Act authorization may be required.”

Ah yes, Picton Terminal’s development plans. The Terminals quarries rock in the service of “development,” and then sells it for tens of millions of dollars. MNR agrees no rock quarrying permit is required because no rock quarrying is taking place; development is taking place.

The developments are generally opaque. In this case, however, PT says the quarrying of the cliff is to make way for 8 massive grain silos to be built by P & H. These have not yet been approved by the County. A permit has not even been applied for.

“We suggest you reach out to MECP, Quinte Conservation, and Prince Edward County,” said MNR.

The Ministry of the Environment said it had been notified of the blasting — PT posts notices of blasting on its website.  MECP also said that everything was proceeding as usual. “Ministry staff have followed up and confirmed that the recent blasting at the site does not impact the measures outlined in the Interim Action Plan.” This “interim” action plan is for managing stormwater and groundwater runoff at PT, “interim” because the works PT has been developing in the service of a permanent plan never quite come to completion. That means the rock quarrying can continue indefinitely, too.

Finally, there was Quinte Conservation Authority, which acknowledged both that QCA had oversight of the rock face in question, and had not issued a permit, though they would have had they been asked. The CAO, Brad McNevin, wrote:

“According to our Shoreline Management Plan (2022) … the rock face is only marginally located within our regulated area (within a few meters)….Staff would have issued a permit for the removal of the rock face upon receipt of an application.”

Reading between the lines, it is clear Picton Terminals never applied for a permit for this round of blasting. Indeed, the last time PT had a permit from QCA was in 2018.

This is where Council’s settlement deal has put us. It hands oversight of the Terminals and the escarpment it has agreed not to alter without “approvals” to the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of the Environment, and Quinte Conservation. Yet these ministries either have inadequate powers or limited jurisdiction. Each thinks the other should be the one in charge. An effective system — if washing your hands and passing the buck at the same time is the game you want to be playing.

The only people who care what Picton Terminals does are those who have to live with it. Yet Council’s settlement deal, with its MZO, hands the ability to regulate the Terminals to the province.  

What a disaster.