A happy ending for conservation lovers, as the Hamilton Conservation Authority Board buys into removal of Maplewood Hall (and the long roadway and parking area) to rehabilitate the natural lands at this beautiful property.
Money from private donors saved the day, swaying the HCA Advisory Board to finally agree to what the HCA staff report had previously unequivocally determined was the best course of action.
Yet this victory for nature leaves me somewhat disconcerted about how this all played out, and what it might mean for the HCA's future.
Here's how I interpreted the chain of events: Maplewood is losing money, the HCA decides to examine it's future. HCA staff prepare a detailed report outlining various options and recommend removing Maplewood and naturalizing the area as the preferred option. The HCA Board decides to wait and seek other options, though it seems there was no formal process to seek options. At some point Tony Evans of the Dundas Montessori school gets told about Maplewood and after seeing it for the first time, decides it would be a perfect place for his private school. Discussions take place privately between HCA and Evans.
The strange thing to me is that the HCA seemed to be encouraging this option, which was roundly denounced by environmentalists from the venerable Hamilton Naturalist Club, to Thomas Beckett, the HCA's first chairperson and the person who arranged for the purchase of the property in question when he was chair. The only people speaking in support of private school use were Evans and the person who built Evans' school playground. Their claims that the school would save the conservation movement were bombastic and self-serving.
The Dundas Valley is a special place, thanks to people like Mr Beckett, Joanna Chapman and others who share a vision of the common good and are willing to speak up and defend conservation principles, even when the Authority won't.
The people who are putting their money on the line to ensure the HCA protects the valley are people with a long and proven commitment to conservation. It is wonderful that they are able to offer resources to see the right thing is done in this case. Yet two things jump out at me here. One: if the HCA had acted on the staff report, and not bargained with Evans, these folks might not have had to pledge to the cause. Does this mean if the HCA makes another questionable call they will be expecting citizens with money to buy the right decision? Or two: will the HCA take money if the offer is sweet enough to trade some land for private uses that may or may not be compatible with principles of conservation?
I'd like to have full faith in the HCA to do the right thing. At this point, I'm not sure which way this could go.
[first published at DundasWalks]
Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2014
Friday, August 9, 2013
The Art of Sinking
When it sinks in.
When it sinks in that visiting artist Gregg Schlanger chose to focus his considerable talent on McMaster's Parking Lot "M" for his contribution to the Mapping Paradise show, it ignited a thrill in me: here is art speaking a new language on a current environmental issue.
That the issue is central to what I've been working on for the past several years felt like affirmation, yes, but more, like a new force has joined the cause, which has grown to include so many within just the last year.
Gregg's work entitled "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" is the central defining artwork in a lively show of student work from Judy Major-Girardin's ART 2ER3 "Environmentally Responsible Studio" class at McMaster University.
When it sinks in that visiting artist Gregg Schlanger chose to focus his considerable talent on McMaster's Parking Lot "M" for his contribution to the Mapping Paradise show, it ignited a thrill in me: here is art speaking a new language on a current environmental issue.
That the issue is central to what I've been working on for the past several years felt like affirmation, yes, but more, like a new force has joined the cause, which has grown to include so many within just the last year.
Gregg's work entitled "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" is the central defining artwork in a lively show of student work from Judy Major-Girardin's ART 2ER3 "Environmentally Responsible Studio" class at McMaster University.
The form is a low wood frame box filled with water in the middle of the gallery, with a raised, flat platform - like an oil rig in the sea - standing over the water. The platform is at first unfamiliar, until we see it in the shape of McMaster's Parking Lot M in the west campus.
Water bubbles up and breaks through the flat platform like mini geysers or springs. The work reminds us that the parking lot is built atop the floodplain of Ancaster Creek, and that the ripples of this environmental degradation still flow outward, to actively reach out to us from below. Subconsciously perhaps, for some, and more immediate for those who know the story of how Coldspring Valley Nature Sanctuary became a parking lot. The paving of this bit of Cootes Paradise came around the same time that Joni Mitchell released her classic "Big Yellow Taxi" in 1970 with the refrain:
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Half Capacity: Zero Problems
Usually, standing on the median between the northbound/southbound lanes of Cootes Drive would be an unnerving experience, due to the high speed traffic clocking in at 80km/hour and more.
But during road construction, the closure of the southbound lane of Cootes Drive has calmed traffic speeds and made the road quieter and safer.
With Spencer Creek and ponds to the left of the road, and Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary wetlands to the right, the inhabitants of the natural environment fare poorly when forced to interact with traffic. The huge distance between the shoulders of the road are a major barrier for amphibian and other wetland species, including species at risk like Cootes Paradise's turtle population.
When the road was built in 1936-37, it was built as an example of the new modern highway design: divided lanes with a grassy median, easy curves and low grades. These innovations were achieved in this instance by removing hills and then using the soil to fill in the marshy low ground, creating a dead-zone for wildlife. We have been paying the environmental cost ever since.
But during road construction, the closure of the southbound lane of Cootes Drive has calmed traffic speeds and made the road quieter and safer.
With Spencer Creek and ponds to the left of the road, and Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary wetlands to the right, the inhabitants of the natural environment fare poorly when forced to interact with traffic. The huge distance between the shoulders of the road are a major barrier for amphibian and other wetland species, including species at risk like Cootes Paradise's turtle population.
When the road was built in 1936-37, it was built as an example of the new modern highway design: divided lanes with a grassy median, easy curves and low grades. These innovations were achieved in this instance by removing hills and then using the soil to fill in the marshy low ground, creating a dead-zone for wildlife. We have been paying the environmental cost ever since.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Hiking Hamilton to Dundas
Last fall, not long after I moved from Dundas to nearby Hamilton, I took a hike along the Bruce Trail from Dundurn Street in Hamilton to Governor's Road in Dundas. It was a sort of connecting pilgrimage that I felt I needed to do at the time, a way of saying, it's not that far, I can walk there. Well, that, and the inviting beauty of the trail that helps transmute the daily noise of living into a long, solitary, and highly enjoyable hike.
I did the same route today, this time a summer walk in glorious sunshine, and it took longer to reach my destination as I was able to linger without the threat of a chill. In all, I was walking for a little over five hours. Well, walking and snacking, taking photos, dipping my feet in a forest stream, stopping for lunch at Sherman Falls, etc., but alone, mostly walking, and trying to be present while letting the stresses of life fall to the wayside.
Not having anyone with me was just right today. Sometimes I just like to set my own pace, and not have to worry about talking or adjusting my response to another's needs. Being able to find your natural rhythm is by definition not a group activity.
The route takes me from Hamilton, through Ancaster, and into Dundas, with distinct natural habitats encountered along the way: deep forest streams, open fields, escarpment bluffs.
When I got to the end of my route through the woods, I went to a bus stop to wait for a ride back to Hamilton; after a few minutes a friend drove by, saw me, and pulled over to offer a ride. It was a great way to break the silence.
I did the same route today, this time a summer walk in glorious sunshine, and it took longer to reach my destination as I was able to linger without the threat of a chill. In all, I was walking for a little over five hours. Well, walking and snacking, taking photos, dipping my feet in a forest stream, stopping for lunch at Sherman Falls, etc., but alone, mostly walking, and trying to be present while letting the stresses of life fall to the wayside.
Not having anyone with me was just right today. Sometimes I just like to set my own pace, and not have to worry about talking or adjusting my response to another's needs. Being able to find your natural rhythm is by definition not a group activity.
The route takes me from Hamilton, through Ancaster, and into Dundas, with distinct natural habitats encountered along the way: deep forest streams, open fields, escarpment bluffs.
When I got to the end of my route through the woods, I went to a bus stop to wait for a ride back to Hamilton; after a few minutes a friend drove by, saw me, and pulled over to offer a ride. It was a great way to break the silence.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Beatles Blog
I went outside, belly full of Wellington County beer, to declare "the Beatles" the best damn band in the universe.
The sky yanked my head up.
"See the pretty clouds, white, with pinky-orange?"
They drifted from the west.
"Yes," I answered, "They are beautiful."
My head drooped, hair hanging in my eyes.
I dared say nothing about the Beatles.
The problem with analysis, the over-academic analysis of every little thing, is that if you analyzed the Beatles to a fault when they were 18, you would have wasted your time once you let them get to 30.
This doesn’t have to make sense. But freeze things as they are, they might not become what they will.
Clouds have a way of disrupting the music. When I went back out, the clouds had moved to grey and the neighbour’s music was too loud. And their screen door slams.
Rain flooded the basement, and my eyes itch with mould. I’ve switched from beer to coffee.
From the doorstep, 9:47 p.m. there is a darkness, an inky blackness in the west, but overhead, a deep deep twilight blue and clear enough to see the stars. A woman walks past, right arm swinging. Two bicyclists whirr down the hill. And of course cars, loud on the wet pavement.
"The Beatles were the greatest band in the universe," I whisper. But the universe pays them no mind.
The sky yanked my head up.
"See the pretty clouds, white, with pinky-orange?"
They drifted from the west.
"Yes," I answered, "They are beautiful."
My head drooped, hair hanging in my eyes.
I dared say nothing about the Beatles.
*
The problem with analysis, the over-academic analysis of every little thing, is that if you analyzed the Beatles to a fault when they were 18, you would have wasted your time once you let them get to 30.
This doesn’t have to make sense. But freeze things as they are, they might not become what they will.
Clouds have a way of disrupting the music. When I went back out, the clouds had moved to grey and the neighbour’s music was too loud. And their screen door slams.
Rain flooded the basement, and my eyes itch with mould. I’ve switched from beer to coffee.
*
"...every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent."(John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany.)
From the doorstep, 9:47 p.m. there is a darkness, an inky blackness in the west, but overhead, a deep deep twilight blue and clear enough to see the stars. A woman walks past, right arm swinging. Two bicyclists whirr down the hill. And of course cars, loud on the wet pavement.
"The Beatles were the greatest band in the universe," I whisper. But the universe pays them no mind.
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