By Bob Reid (Ontario Farmer)
New Hamburg – The proposed extension of a four-lane highway through the most intensively farmed livestock region in Canada will pose challenges never before faced by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO).
The 25 km stretch of Hwy. 7 and 8 in question, from New Hamburg to Stratford, cuts basically through the middle of Perth County, traditionally number one for pork production and number two for dairy in the province. The first attempt to expand the two-lane highway to four lanes was made as far back as the 1970’s due to increasing traffic volumes.
That effort by the MTO was shelved, mainly due to resistance from a strong farming community concerned about preservation of farmland.
Fast-forward to 2008 and the traffic volumes have increased dramatically with the stretch of road being the site of numerous automobile accidents and fatalities. The decision to further study a highway expansion was based on a traffic study by the MTO completed in 2006.
Manure nutrient management regulations have come to dominate agriculture development, often requiring farmers to own widely scattered properties that to which they need ready access for spreading manure. Limited access four lane highways can create a blockade prohibiting that.
The City of Stratford sees the highway as a bottleneck in its development. Liberal MPP for Perth-Wellington riding and Minister of Research and Innovation, John Wilkinson made upgrading the highway to four lanes a main priority for his campaign during the last provincial election.
The town of New Hamburg worries that a bypass will result in less business coming its way. The village of Shakespeare has similar worries about a bypass or on the other hand, if in fact the current highway were widened through the centre of the village it would physically wipe out half of its businesses
These are just some of the factors pulling in direct opposition to one another in a complex puzzle to solve.
“The tipping point for me was talking to volunteer firemen who had quit the department because they could not stand witnessing the accidents along Hwy 7 & 8,” said Wilkinson of his decision to push the issue.
Now that the $2-million study is underway he sees his part in the project as being complete, other than encouraging members of the public affected to participate in the project through the public consultation process. He emphasized it is not his responsibility to influence the decision making process in any way.
Wilkinson sees the future of Stratford development tied to Kitchener/Waterloo region to the east rather than the London region to the south, adding to the need for improved transportation along that corridor.
“There will be no back room deals,” stated Wilkinson of the process, adding, “It will be done in the democratic public forum.”
At one point, six possible routes were all being considered before the farm community became directly involved. These included routes one concession north of the existing highway, one concession south, creating a new highway corridor all together or expansion of the existing highway. Each corridor would affect a one and a half kilometer wide stretch of property.
Once there was full realization of how the project will affect the larger farm operations that have developed over the years, a coalition of community residents was quickly formed. The Agriculture Business Community was established in July of 2008 at an on farm meeting near Tavistock.
Chair of the 25-member group is well-known dairy farmer and purebred Holstein breeder Wayne Wagler whose 500 acre Claynook Farm is right in the middle of at least one of the routes once being considered.
In comparing the push for a four-lane highway now to what happened nearly 40 years ago, Wagler noted that both government officials and the farming community agree that something has to be done because of traffic volume.
The difficulty arises in deciding just what that is since no matter what action is taken it will adversely affect some property owners, farming operations and urban businesses. One of the main objectives of the ABC is to see farm owners treated fairly and adequately compensated for disruptions to their operations.
A wide variety of talents were offered by volunteers working toward that goal while operating on a small donation of funds from within the rural community.
Wagler described the current relationship between ABC and the MTO officials as a conciliatory one trying to reach the best possible decision after getting off to a rough start.
“They (MTO) made the decision on where to locate the preferred routes by looking on Google Earth,” said Wagler, referring to the popular computer program featuring aerial mapping of most of the planet. No consideration was given to any environmental assessment study.
Wager admitted that the MTO had to start somewhere but was shocked to find out that those making the decision about where to locate the four lane were not even aware of manure nutrient management regulations and the accompanying power now wielded by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) in the agriculture community.
Over the past several months the MTO and its consultants for the project have visited over 32 farms that could be affected. They have been given an education on manure nutrient management and the dollar value attached to modern farming operations.
An extensive brief, describing how the four-lane highway could impact agriculture and hence the local economy, was submitted to the MTO in September by the community group. A second brief was submitted in February, also by ABC volunteers.
Both the MTO and ABC have held public information meetings some attended by well over 200 people with crowds growing as more people realized what is at stake. Further public consultation meetings are scheduled for June by the MTO
“We had to teach the MTO our language and we had to learn their language,” said Wagler.
Along with the language, the list of factors to be considered has grown. The evaluation now considers 80 different factors and sub-factors, said Charles Organ, project manager with the MTO in London.
The five major groups include: the natural environment; land use socio-economic; cultural; economic; transportation.
He added that agriculture is an “important consideration.”
“There are $10 million to $15 million dollar enterprises they (MTO) want to plow through,” said Wagler adding MTO has different assessment criteria for valuing farmland. MTO takes an estimate of the value of just the square footage of land needed for the highway, based on bare acreages sold in the area, without taking into consideration how it can alter an entire farming operation.
Using his own farm as an example Wagler explained that 500 acres was required to spread the manure from his 160-cow operation. With land on both sides of the current Hwy. 7 and 8, should a limited access highway cut off part of that land he would either have to buy land elsewhere that was accessible or reduce the size of his farming operation which could adversely affect its viability.
“Tell a farmer that it is going to take him an hour and a half to haul a load of manure that used to take him seven minutes before,” exclaimed Wagler.
“The MTO does not have a good history of managing settlements to the satisfaction of property owners they disrupt,” said Wagler. He and his committee members have recently visited numerous municipal councils to make them aware of the potential damage to drainage systems.
At the same time he described the MTO officials and their project consultants as “intelligent people” who have been receptive to concerns presented by ABC. As a result the six proposed routes once being considered have been reduced to two, according to Wagler. These would be primarily the expansion of the current highway or a new route following along the south side of the CNR line from New Hamburg to Stratford.
The former will impact the village of Shakespeare, which is located on Hwy. 7 and 8 between New Hamburg and Stratford while the latter will effectively cut a number of farms in two with a construction of a limited access four-lane highway.
No final decision will be reached until after the completion of the current MTO study in 2010.
Skirting the highway around the southern edge of Stratford will present a whole other list of challenges and concerns for businesses there.
Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson emphasized that it is not the city’s intention to use farmland for the construction of a four-lane bypass highway. In fact city council passed a resolution in January stating that the four-lane highway could be accommodated on the existing Lorne Avenue with an upgrade to that street.
“There was a lot of incorrect information assuming we (city council) wanted to use good farmland,” said Mathieson.
He outlined three reasons why the expanded highway is important to the city – future growth along the corridor from the edge of Kitchener westward toward Stratford, safe movement of people and safe movement of goods.
Mathieson also believes that regardless of what route is selected, construction will take at least 10 years to begin.
Even if no construction of a new highway takes place in the next 30 years, once a corridor is identified, it may limit those property owners in the corridor from future development, “Holding farmers hostage for 30 years is immoral,” said Wagler.
From the Ontario Farmer, February 17, 2009
We thank the Ontario Farmer for allowing us to reprint this article. -ABC
