Guelph Green MPP doubtful that farmlands turned into gravel pits can be rehabilitated

In Ontario, farmland that becomes an aggregate pit must be rehabilitated after all materials have been extracted, however Guelph MPP and leader of the Green Party of Ontario Mike Schreiner is doubtful that the land can return to what it once was.

"Rehabilitation hardly ever restores the site back to its previous condition — most gravel pits become lakes, housing developments, open spaces," Schreiner told CBC News in an email. "That's if they are rehabilitated [at all]." 

"It's virtually impossible to return farmland to its previous level of productivity."

The Ontario Aggregate Resources Act requires companies to return gravel pits to their original condition. 

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) said that more than 2,000 applications for aggregate pits and quarries-pit combinations have got the green light since 2003. 

But how many have been returned to their original state isn't clear. 

Tracking rehabilitation  

"MNRF does not have requirements to track when companies initiate extraction activities or subsequent progressive rehabilitation," said spokesperson Ed Mick in an email statement.  

CBC News has asked the ministry how many of the more than 2,000 pits and pit-quarry combinations have undergone final rehabilitation — as "progressive rehabilitation" is to be done as aggregate companies extract material from the ground — but didn't receive a response by the time of publication.

"The licence / permit and site plan for each site sets out the rehabilitation terms and conditions," Mick added. "Timing of progressive rehabilitation is site-specific and depends on the specific approval and operational phasing for the site."

Mark Reusser, vice president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, has made similar observations as Schreiner.

"In all the time that I have spent visiting sites, on tours by the [Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association] … I have never seen a site that has been rehabilitated back to its original productive capacity, " Reusser said.

There isn't a deadline for when a licensee must rehabilitate the land, which Reusser said he'd like to see. 

"For goodness sakes, farmland is a non-renewable natural resource," Reusser said. "If you treat it well, it is a perpetual resource in that it can continue to produce food forever if you treat it well. Aggregate resource is a one time deal. You take it out, it's gone forever."

Sharon Armstrong, vice president with the Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, insists gravel pit rehabilitation is the standard in the industry.

"I would say it's 100 per cent or close to 100 per cent of any of the aggregate sites that have been licensed in the last 30 years will eventually be rehabilitated," she said.

"It's really important that all of the material be extracted because otherwise you're just going to have more sites," she added. "So it's really important that the site remain open until all of that material is gone, so that's the reason why sites stay open."