The key issue now is the overheated rhetoric and obscene and violent behaviour of protestors that occupied the site illegally during the summer. These same protestors uttered threats, spit and shouted obscenities at a recent event at the site.

Bob Gordon fails to talk about the protestors use of exaggerated and inaccurate words to describe the Hanlon Creek Business Park. “Pristine wetlands”, “wilderness”, and “old growth forest” are among the inappropriate phrases applied to the site.

The facts about the site are quite different. The city’s Environmental Advisory Committee, of which I am chair, has spent many hours over several years reviewing the City’s environmental impact reports and walking the site. The public discussion about this site should be grounded in facts, not myths.

The lands of the Hanlon Creek Business Park are similar to many undeveloped lands across the city and surrounding Wellington County: farmland, corn fields, streams with many impacts, wetlands affected by artificial drainage and invasive species, young regenerating forests. Far from unique, pristine or wilderness. Yet the key natural features do deserve protection and our Committee supported the City’s environmental reports on the site, subject to 17 different environmental conditions which we expect the City to meet.

Old growth forests, using any scientific definition of this term, do not exist on this site. In fact most of the forests are relatively young. Some older heritage trees found along Forestell Road are protected under the current plan. The term old growth forest means that the forest ecosystem has specific physical and biological features, such as a lack of disturbance by humans, characteristic old growth plant and animal species, large, old living and dead standing trees, and trees in all age classes.

Western Chorus Frog is found at the site and at other sites in the city and surrounding regions. This species was recently declared not-at-risk in Ontario, while nationally one population of the species is listed as threatened due to declines in other provinces. Yet Bob Gordon inaccurately claims this species is at risk in Ontario.

The endangered Jefferson Salamander may be found at the site, or not. Certainty of this species’ occurrence is tough to establish due to its reclusive habits and difficulties separating it from “hybrids” that combine genetic characteristics of the Jefferson and the more common Blue-spotted Salamander. Ontario’s new Endangered Species Act imposes strong protections on the Jefferson Salamander. Bob Gordon incorrectly states that the Endangered Species Act apples only to “provincially owned land.”

The Hanlon Creek Business Park contains provincially significant wetlands, streams, and other ecological features that deserve protection. But there are other lands within the business park that can be developed in a sustainable manner. Achieving environmental, social and economic objectives concurrently is what sustainability is all about. Let’s have a civil discussion about the facts and forget the myth about fictitious “old growth wilderness”.

Many local progressive organizations have endorsed teh idea that most of the land slated for development should be developed for employment in the city. The Guelph Civic League the Council of Canadians have taken such positions. Yet Bob Gordon does not mention any of this.

Quite disappointing for Ontario Nature to condone such biased reporting.