Is There A New Border Compromise Route

Good morning Malden Road residents. You are the new border road!

Will you be waking up one morning from a good night's sleep, just like the residents of Todd Lane or Riberdy Road before you, to discover out of the blue that your homes may be taken away from you for a new truck highway? Is there a new, "old" compromise border route? [Click the photo to enlarge it]

This BLOG is pure speculation so be warned upfront. I have no idea whether it is true or not and neither do my sources. It is based on pure hunch since certain events have taken place that seem out of character. When something is illogical, it forces people to ask why and to put together pieces of a puzzle. One may not come up with the exact answer but, quite often, one can get very close to the truth. This Blog is meant to be nothing more than a thought-provoker for you.

There is no doubt that the City needs a route to the border, and may have one. In fact, it may have had one right from the beginning. You never reveal all your cards at the beginning of a poker game do you?

The City cannot just rant and rave and shout its negative slogans. That gets tiresome after awhile and is not at all productive. They need a border road whose objectives are to keep vehicles away as much as possible from the Ambassador Bridge and to discredit the City's own WALTS Road that would lead to the Bridge. The road also has to go to Brighton Beach.

The bargaining chip in this for the City is a Customs plaza at Brighton Beach which was never intended to be an "industrial park." It was the lever to get money out of the Senior Levels for a Lauzon Road/E C Road upgrade eventually. That has been the goal of the City for a very long time. I suspect that this "compromise" road has been around too.

When the Schwartz route was introduced, I think even the Mayor was shocked at the strength of the pesky environmentalists over using Ojibway as a route to the border, even if it was tunnelled. He expected some outcry naturally but he expected also to fool people over Schwartz and have them drown out the tree-hugging, rattle-snake loving CPOW supporters. He gambled and lost when even DRIC/Cansult supported them!

Eddie learned a lesson from that as we saw in the Tecumseh meeting and the Resolution passed there. Do not talk about a specific route but just talk about an EA west of Huron Church to study all alternatives. Remember what Schwartz's Marko Paranosic said in a Henderson column:

• "...it's now clear the Schwartz plan's one mistake was drawing a specific line through the grasslands.
  
  He said if they had produced a yellow fuzzy swath like the DRICP did, as many as 50 potential routes could have been considered."

But never give up is the rule, even if it makes no sense, and carry a grudge to get even too. Why else would Eddie have talked about Ojibway when he threatened a lawsuit recently. He knew that his reference to the Ojibway Nature Reserve being tunnelled would be like a red cape to a bull when the Star published it. It would immediately provoke outrage amongst the tree-huggers and, more importantly, also divert their attention from his real route:

• "He said the Schwartz proposal, which was commissioned by the city and completed by New York traffic expert Sam Schwartz, moves the traffic off city streets and creates a tunnel under the Ojibway natural area. "They've not even looked at that alternative," Francis said."

Eddie got in his dig but he may have signalled what he was thinking too. Someone is still looking to build a road that will impact that area.

Behind the scenes, there may be a compromise solution being worked on. Rather, it may be the real City position being put forward since Schwartz was a mere diversion.

In a sense the economic situation will be more helpful to the Mayor to ram something through the Ojibway Complex since we desperately need short-term infrastructure jobs and time for economic diversification. We need to find a way to keep the local economy moving as we wean ourselve off the auto industry and the unions re-adjust to the new reality. We need a border that works if we want new investment here for our new EDC CEO to try to get for us.

To accomplish the objectives, and if most of Ojibway can be saved, then who will be around to complain other than the Nature extremists who will be positioned as wanting to save grass over children's health and lives and our economy! We will see the attacks as Henderson has done before:

• "It speaks volumes about our society's twisted priorities that maintaining a strip of tall grass prairie in a pristine state takes precedence over protecting the quality of life of generations of Windsor residents...
  
  I'm all in favour of grasses, rare or otherwise. But sacrificing entire neighbourhoods on their behalf?
  
  There must be a better way."
  
  

It is a good tactic if you did not know about it in advance. If what I am writing about is true, and obviously I am not on the inside, then now you do too and will see this for what it is.

Why not be honest about it all? Open and transparent government and all that.

So since we get no information, let's start speculating so you can understand what is behind all of this.

Prior to July 2006, The Spring Garden ANSI was the only protected area in this region that had a population of the endangered Massasauga Rattlesnake. In fact "The Federal Habitat Stewardship (HSP) program and, more specifically, the Corporation of the City of Windsor's 'Tallgrass Prairie and Savanna Habitat Acquisition: Spring Garden Natural Area, Windsor, ON Project' (aka Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake Habitat Acquisition Project: Spring Garden Prairie) has provided a total of $1,250,000 to the Spring Garden Prairie Project since 2001. "

• "The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake, Sistrurus catenatus, is the only venomous snake still found in Ontario. Although the venom is potent, this snake's small size and retiring habits make it a minor risk to humans....Rattlesnakes were common in the Windsor area fifty years ago but their population has seriously declined with development and urbanization of the area....Ojibway supports small populations...Due to the rapidly disappearing habitat and declining population, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake has been officially designated as threatened and is protected from harassment or killing under Ontario's Wildlife Conservation Act."

In 2003, home construction in the Lasalle Woodlot area uncovered a nest of Massasaugas. As an endangered species, the snake has a "recovery plan" and a "recovery team". The recovery team took the snakes, including a pregnant female, to the Toronto Zoo. These snakes were successfully raised, and the team proposed a plan to reintroduce the snakes to the Ojibway Provincial Prairie Reserve.

Massasauga's are considered a "keystone" species of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Reestablishing a population in the Provincial Reserve was considered a priority to the recovery team, as the Provincial Park has the greatest degree of protection of any of the areas within the Ojibway Complex. Indeed it was designated a provincial park because it is one of the very few remnants of tallgrass prairie in Ontario, and has been studied and shown to be the richest in terms of rare plants and animals.

It seems that the recovery teams proposal to put the snakes into the Provincial Reserve was not approved initially.

The 2 areas of the Ojibway Complex most directly threatened by the Schwartz bypass/border route are Spring Garden and the Ojibway Prairie Provincial Reserve. The Provincial Preserve's higher degree of protection as a natural area is reflected in Schwartz's proposed "tunnel". No tunnel was ever proposed for Spring Garden.

The best thing Spring Garden had going for it in terms of the battle against Schwartz was its uniqueness as the only protected area in the region with a population of a federally protected species: Massasaugas.

However, MNR approval was received in May 2006 and the snakes were released in June into the Ojibway Prairie. There is now an interpretive sign in the Reserve that gives some details. The snakes are being tracked via implants and radio-telemetry devices.

With the reintroduction of snakes into the Provincial reserve, Spring Garden lost its best chip against Schwartz. Spring Garden is no longer the sole protected area with a population of Massasaugas.

If snakes are to be re-introduced in the Prairie, then the Spring Garden portion of the route could remain, but the portion of the route going through the Provincial Prairie could be rerouted parallel to Malden Road. The City could defuse the arguments of pesky environmentalists since the protected area was now Ojibway and not Spring Garden. The rattlesnake people would be happy that their snakes had a home and so would not object or raise a big fuss. In fact, they would have to support what was done Pooof, one group of naturists gone as opponents.

Some people speculated that when Schwartz first came out that "They don't really want the Prairie portion, they are putting that in as a chip to "lose" in a compromise. They really want Spring Garden." Now that's playing poker... just as Brighton Bridge appeared in Schwartz as if by magic when it actually had been around for a very long time as the City's plaza choice.

The federal review of Schwartz done by Cansult in Oct 2005 estimated a tunnel to protect the Provincial Prairie could cost hundreds of millions per KM. No level of government would approve such a budget for a short tunnel under what is essentially an empty field. Even using the latest "bored tunnel" technology, there is no guarantee that the water table of Ojibway would be unaffected. The high water table is the key component of the endangered tallgrass prairie ecosystem. They could spend all that money and still destroy the significance of Ojibway Reserve, which they have spent millions studying and documenting over the last 30 years.

It looks therefore like Spring Garden ANSI is going to be used as the border road compromise.

Is it all over now for the pesky environmentalists? Is Spring Garden now finished since snakes are being reintroduced to the Provincial Reserve? Perhaps not... it is not the only chip it has. Things are starting to look bad though for the area.

Even in the grant applications completed by the City, the focus is not solely on the snake but other elements of the endangered ecosystems found within Spring Garden. Spring Garden is the largest natural area in the City. As the OfficialPlan sets out,

• "In 1983, the Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) designated a large section of the Spring Garden Planning Area as an Environmentally Significant Area (ESA). The following year, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) designated approximately the same area as an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI), and in 1994, the City of Windsor designated approximately 165 hectares as a Candidate Natural Heritage Site (CNHS)."

The City is under an OMB ruling to buy out all the remaining privately held lots in Spring Garden to complete its designation as natural heritage. They are under a deadline with stages for different areas within the ANSI. The final stage Dec 31 2007.

• "5.7.7.2 That the privately owned lands shown in areas “A, B, C & D” as shown on Schedule “A” of this report BE ACQUIRED by the City on or before December 31, 2005, and the privately owned lands in Area “E” as shown on Schedule “A” of this report BE ACQUIRED on or before December 31, 2007. Any lands not purchased by the foregoing deadlines will have their OP designations, which were in effect on December 16, 2001, restored (Added by OMB Decision #1635 – 11/29/2002)"

The Star reported in March, 2006 however that "Since 2002, the city has acquired almost 40 per cent of the 136- acre Spring Garden ANSI, home to a number of rare Carolinian zone natural species. Sadler said the city's plan remains to have the entire parcel acquired by 2007, either by purchasing private lots, exchanging them for other properties or through expropriation.

There is still a lot to be done before the end of next year and money is getting tighter in Windsor with all of the hits our economy is taking. What if the deadline comes and not everything is taken over? At that point, under the OMB ruling, the the lands not purchased will revert to the 2001 zoning. Now that will make it a whole lot easier to put a highway through Spring Garden.

In passing, there may be a big fight with dozens of private land owners who held lots within Spring Garden and who have already been expropriated. Perhaps these original landowners may try and get their lots back in a class action lawsuit. Wouldn't that be interesting?

Would this compromise road work? I thought the DRIC engineers looked at Malden as an alternative and rejected it because of the high impact on the Community. How can the City fight that one if they are trying to preserve neighbourhoods? If the Mayor is "obliged to deal with "what's on the table now," then how can the City propose a road there if it has not been supported, even if it is a compromise road?

There are many arguments that can be used why this so-called compromise road should be rejected. But that is for another time if there seems to be some fire under all of this smoke.