Letter: Planning Committee fails to protect water quality of Ramsey Lake

City council’s Planning Committee turned away from making the right decision July 6.

Despite its own concerns for the protection of the city’s drinking water, with Ramsey Lake providing 40 per cent of that source, it approved the huge development of 147 homes along its pristine shores to compromise part of the lake’s watershed.

There was some handwringing yesterday as the committee churned through its decision-making, but not enough because they recommended approval for it anyway. Regrettably, all those concerns for Sudbury’s potable water fell by the wayside as they also ignored the fact that those 147 units will crowd the shores of our lake with people, lots of people who will salt their driveways, wash their cars, fertilize their lawns and add to the flotsam of surface water that will stream into our lake.

Other construction projects are sitting by, waiting for approval, and council will be hard pressed to refuse the others. So our future generations may well see our lake crowded and polluted by urban development. And who knows what the pending watershed study will tell us at a later date. What to do when it tells us, “well, you shouldn’t have allowed that.”

Let’s see what brave soul will call for expropriation when that day comes.

If they hoped to dissuade the developer from appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board by supporting a somewhat reduced 147 dwellings rather than the original 174, it seems the developer is appealing anyway and now he has the tacit approval of the committee to support his plea.

Eight hours of committee meetings over the last two weeks was a revealing civic experience. They fixed 42 conditions to the proposal. Wasn’t that an indication this proposal was a bit sour? As our politicians struggled to do things right with this proposal, they neglected to do the right thing. The timing was right to protect our lake, but they missed the boat.

André Clément
Chair, Sudbury Chapter,
Council of Canadians