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Regional official plans and the ANS

by Dianne Saxe on March 12, 2010

Some consultants are making a serious error in their Records of Site Condition. According to O.Reg. 153/04, every Qualified Person is required to check the ‘municipal official plan’ to identify ‘areas of natural significance’. Some, however, are forgetting to check the Regional Official Plan – Regions are municipalities! These kinds of errors can make a Record of Site Condition contain “false or misleading” information or certification, and therefore can rob an RSC of all value to a property owner.

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Renewable energy FIT contracts rolling out

by Dianne Saxe on March 10, 2010

The Ontario Power Authority has just announced the first group of contracts to buy renewable energy electricity at premium Feed in Tariff (FIT) prices, under the Green Energy Act. These contracts have been awarded for projects that do not require upgrades to the electrical transmission and distribution grid, and therefore can be built quickly without significant public investment. [click to continue…]

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Environmental insurance getting cheaper?

March 10, 2010

Last week, insurance representatives told the Ontario Bar Association that environmental cleanup insurance has become much less expensive, perhaps 1 cent per square foot per year for large property portfolios. The available coverages have also expanded.
This is good news. Environmental insurance is appealling, but has usually been too expensive for smaller deals and single sites [...]

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Making parent companies pay: a sting in the tail of approval reform

March 9, 2010

This should add some surprising complications to a wide variety of transactions.

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Sustainable events – real or greenwashing?

March 8, 2010

Canadian pride in our “green Olympics” is about to be translated into a standard for sustainable events: Z2010. The Canadian Standards Association worked unofficially with VANOC’s Corporate Sustainability Office to develop the standard in record time, and to learn from its experience in putting on the Vancouver Olympics.

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Environmental Assessment: Worth the cost?

March 5, 2010

The main finding of this study is that the lengthy time frames and higher costs to comply with the Municipal Class EA process are not providing additional environmental or other benefits.

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Renewable energy guidance

March 4, 2010

Need a renewable energy approval under the Environmental Protection Act for a wind, solar or biomass project? Six new draft technical guidance documents have been released for three months’ public comment,  to May 30, 2010. See EBR Registry Number 010-9235. Applicants should follow the guidance, even before it is formally adopted, and opponents will study [...]

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Approvals Reform gets closer

March 3, 2010

For most businesses that need new or amended approvals, these changes probably cannot come quickly enough. But the transition period could be painful.

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Expert witnesses: preparation

March 2, 2010

How do lawyers use Expert Witnesses in Environmental Litigation? Here’s an outline from one of Dianne’s seminars:

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Financial assurance: what counts?

March 1, 2010

Detox appealed the Ministry demand for $100,000 in financial assurance for transportation accidents relating to PCBs. As Detox pointed out, it holds $5 million of vehicle insurance, to cover precisely the same sort of accidents, and the MOE’s amount, $100,000, was almost certainly inadequate.

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Water Quality Trading

February 25, 2010

An enthusiastic study on Water Quality Trading recommends using “cap and trade” to control phosphorus levels in the Lake Simcoe watershed.
Lake Simcoe needs a major reduction in phosphorus loadings, even as population and climate change increase. The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan commits the province to complete a Water Quality Trading Feasibility Study under subsection 75 [...]

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Drinking water safety: Worried yet about 2013?

February 24, 2010

Anyone elected to municipal council this fall, October 25, 2010, will still be in office on January 1, 2013, when section 19 of the Safe Drinking Water Act comes into effect. This is the unprecedented duty of care that requires municipal councillors and staff to “act honestly, competently and with integrity, with a view to [...]

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False or misleading Records of site condition

February 23, 2010

Is a site really clean? Can you trust a Record of Site Condition?
We keep finding examples of why the Ministry of the Environment had to tighten the obligations of Qualified Persons in Regulation 153/04, the regulation that governs contaminated sites. The regulation requires a Qualified Person to certify the highest known concentrations of contaminants on [...]

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Thanks to Maxxam for 153/04 comparison chart

February 22, 2010

A concordance between the Soil, Ground Water and Sediment Standards for use under Part XV.1 of the Environmental Protection Act, March 9, 2004, which are still in force, and the new version, dated July 29, 2009, that will come into effect on July 1, 2011.

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Building codes, waterless urinals and rooftop solar

February 19, 2010

Ontario has finally adopted the regulation that it promised last May, to prevent building codes and 23 other types of rules from blocking geothermal and rooftop solar projects.

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