The Town of South Bruce Peninsula is giving up its legal battle over Piping Plover habitat at Sauble Beach after losing another appeal in the matter recently.
- Council To Discuss Next Move After Lost Appeal In Sauble Plover Court Battle
- Town Loses Appeal Over Plover Habitat At Sauble Beach
The town was convicted in 2019 of damaging habitat of the endangered shore bird, by raking and grading the beach in prior years.
South Bruce Peninsula council met in closed session April 28 to discuss next steps after three judges dismissed an appeal by the town which argued the courts erred in their interpretation of the word ‘damage’, and that the opinion of a Ministry of Natural Resources Biologist should not have been accepted as the Ministry was the regulatory agency that charged the town.
After the closed session meeting, South Bruce Peninsula council released the following statement on the town’s website:
Council has accepted the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal and will not further pursue this matter.
After an exhaustive and expensive effort, it is evident to us that fighting large, well-funded environmental groups coupled with ambiguous legislation is futile. There seems to be no appetite to oppose these groups, regardless of the circumstances. It is unfortunate that the Town has had to fight to maintain our beach when other communities with Plovers maintain theirs annually in much the same way, without being challenged or charged. Council has always acted in the best interest of our town, in fact through our collaborative stewardship, we saw the largest Plover population in our history return to Sauble after we reclaimed the beach.
The bottom line from this trial is that even though the Plaintiff’s expert witnesses could not prove that we damaged Plover habitat, we were convicted anyway.
For 5 years now, the town has been prevented from touching the beach other than to clear the drainage swales and remove dangerous items, yet we are expected to responsibly host a million tourists each year. Winning this case was critical because a loss will very likely prevent us from properly maintaining our beach again.
Sauble Beach brings millions in tourism and millions in property taxation. This revenue to our taxpayers and businesses is generated primarily because of the beach. People visit and live at the beach because of the beach. Yes, this case has come with a hefty price tag, but we make nearly a million per year in parking revenue alone. Tourists pay our taxpayers a million dollars per year just to visit Sauble Beach.
This case has been ongoing for 5 years and the cost to defend our beach when averaged over that 5-year period, fell within our budget resulting in no property tax increases. We simply had to fight for the right to maintain our own asset, an asset that is critical to our Town.
This Council and the previous Council were committed to ridding our beach of the invasive Willow bushes that blanketed the north end. We suffered a near complete loss of our northern beach as most will remember. The job we did to rid the beach of Willows has endured these last five years. Between bulldozing them out and then killing the remaining Willows with herbicides, we were able to eradicate them. To our good fortune, the high-water levels the following year washed away the remaining dead bushes. We now have our beach back and it’s looking fairly good. Returning our beach to the people has been worth the fight however we worry about how long this will last. The Willows won’t remain at bay forever. This Council will continue to do our best to preserve our beach and ensure its beauty and active enjoyment for our residents and visitors for years to come. In fact, this Council would not hesitate to fight for any area of our Town that is under the threat of loss. We hope that in the future, the Province doesn’t deem any of our other parks a habitat to a discovered species and removes it from public access.
Council stands by its decision to fight for our beach however it is clear that we cannot beat the large environmental groups and the pressure they put on the Province to charge our Town.
This case has now drawn to a close, but this Council will never stop defending the rights of our Town.
Janice Jackson – Mayor
Town of South Bruce Peninsula