The Carp Ridge Society

The Carp Ridge Society has asked Councilor Eli El Chantiri for his help in correcting major problems in the plan for the Chromdale division on the Carp Ridge. When the draft approval for the subdivision was granted to the developer by the West Carleton council in 1991 there were a list of conditions that were intended to guarantee the safety of the local water supply and the natural environment in the affected area of the ridge. With the final approval being evaluated, the developer has had to revise the original plan but our research clearly indicates that rather than bringing the development up to today's standards, major conditions that were demanded by the council have been allowed to slip away.

We believe that the city planners and staff at the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (who review the scientific aspects of development plans for the city) have done their best with their limited resources but the time since the draft plan was approved and the amalgamation of the area into the city has caused important documentation to fall out of the process. The fact that they are still working on the file, months after it expected to have been finalized, proves our contention that they are genuinely concerned with this issue.

Mr El Chantiri would not commit to a straightforward commitment to demanding that the safeguards his predecessors in West Carleton had imposed would be applied. He feels that the length of time the errors have been in the plan make it difficult to expect that they would be applied. He also wants to discuss the matter with the city planner once the planner has reviewed our concerns and dealt with them in some way.

We agree that he must work with the process that is in place. However, we feel the concerns are so great and the facts so obvious that he could take a stand if he wished.

In the 1980s The citizens of West Carleton and the councils of the day worked diligently to change the rules governing the management of the resources and natural area of the Carp Ridge. Their contention was that the landowners were the people best suited to safeguard the ridge. After a longfight that included two cases before the Ontario Municipal Board, they achieved their goals. When our representatives granted the draft approval they imposed conditions that would prove their commitment to responsible development. We cant imagine that they would be pleased to see those conditions brushed aside the rush to give the developer a final approval some 14 years later.

The Carp Ridge Society has invested a great deal of its members time in investigating the issues surrounding the proposed Chromdale Subdivision on the Carp Ridge. There is some debate on this but the development is on the ridge. Semantics and bylaw changes made expressly to permit the development to proceed may help support a different opinion but the development is on the Carp Ridge rather than beside it. Geology, field observation and the developer's own studies clearly prove our contention.

We have long argued that the site should be purchased from the developer to protect the ridge, its wildlife and the health of area residents and our recent research only strengthens that conviction. This document adds to our argument.

There are several specific facts that continue to indicate purchasing the land is the most practical and fair solution for everyone involved, including the developer. This short paper and the attached appendices describes those facts and asks for concerted effort on the part of our politicians and City staff to implement our recommendations.

1. The original conditions that were understood by the approving West Carleton Council, (the same group who implemented a bylaw changing the zoning on the land to permit the draft plan approval for the Chromdale development) have not been met. This occurs in 4 specific instances,

The agricultural setback from farm buildings on the property to the south specified in recommendation 4 of the Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property are not correct, (Report #PR3/92)
the 30 metre setback from the high water mark on the creek that crosses the property are not being properly applied (specified in recommendation 1,3 and 17 of the Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property),
with the exception of a small and clearly defined portion, the entirety of block 34 was to be deeded to the community for conservation purposes (specified in recommendation 4 (d) of the Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property.) This is reflected in By-Law 12 of 1992 that rezones the land in question. The zoning is now being violated.
finally a condition that called for each well on the property to be test drilled has been removed from the conditions. (RMOC File 15-90-3001 Regional Conditions for Approval)

2. The council specified that development was not to be allowed until proper engineering studies had been accepted. There is a significant error in the hydrogeology report on the property as it applies to water quality on the site and at its boundary with the surrounding lands. There are other issues in the study that call its quality into question as well.

3. In spite of a Environmental Impact Statement describing the natural character of the area, the development has already had significant impact on the site including the draining of the fish habitat in the beaver pond and other water controlled by beavers on the property.

1.i The agricultural setback from farm buildings on the property to the south, specified in Recommendation 4 of the Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property are not correct, (Report #PR3/92)

When the original zoning bylaw was produced, the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (MAF) used its authority with the City to apply MDS formula 1 to determine the minimum separation distance from the abutting farm buildings and the residences in the proposed development. The original results of this dictated a specific setback of 211 metres which is not correct today. Gerry McTavish, Regional Manager of the local Client Services Branch of MAF was contacted for a copy of the original documentation but this is no longer available. The currently computed setback is 250.66 meters, a figure not contested by Mr. McTavish. However it is up to the City to request a new estimate by MAF to correct the original error. The 211 metre figure is in error and must be corrected to ensure the farmer's rights are protected.

1.ii The 30 metre setback from the high water mark on the creek. The MVCA did a site visit at the height of the dry season in 2004 and determined that the creek was seasonal and dictated a 30 metre setback from the centre of the creek. The Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property (Report #PR3/92) was very clear in its conditions for granting the zoning change that allowed this development. They specified that the high water mark was to be determined and the area within it noted as a Hazard Zone and the no development of any kind was to be permitted in it. Conditions 1,3 and 17 are very specific in this regard and they are not being met. Not only lots but houses and septics in the site plan are in that Hazard Zone. A 50 year estimate of the high water mark should be made available and applied to the site plan to make it comply.

1.iii Block 34 was to be deeded to the Regional Municipality of West Carleton. The Township of West Carleton Staff Report on the rezoning of this property (Report #PR3/92) states this in recommendation 4 (d). Block 34 is clearly defined in the staff report and its size is given as given as precisely 18 hectares. An Explanatory Note to By-law 12 of 1992 (which rezoned the lands to accommodate the development) goes on to describe that a small portion at the top of 4 lots were to be permitted to intrude into this area to allow them to meet a minimum lot size requirement. Block 34 was rezoned as OS-3 while the small part of it that was now to go to the developer was zoned OS-8. (See appendix 1.iii Explanatory Note to By-Law 12 of 1992). The staff and council of 1992 were making a gesture to the owner that has subsequently been abused.

When the agriculture MDS forced the developer to remove 4 lots from the southern edge of his site plan, he squeezed 3 additional lots into the area that previously housed the 4 lots abutting Block 34. To accomplish this the lots were made much narrower and longer, pushing further into the land of Block 34, which the By-Law had rezoned as OS-3 specifically to protect it from development. This effectively reduces the land being deeded to the City. Approximately 10 acres have been lost in this process and the zoning is being violated.

1 iv Condition requiring test wells on each site. RMOC file 15-90-3001 contains Draft Plan approval conditions that must be met by the developer. Condition 11 has been crossed out on this document and replaced by City document (#59 RS3). The original condition forced the owner to agree in writing that no lot could be sold until " a well has been drilled and tested on the lot to be sold or conveyed " This has been replaced by a general City of Ottawa clause that simply states that if a hydrogeolical study has been approved for the property then Condition 11 is not required.

In many portions of the City that may be adequate. In this instance the problems with the hydrogeological study (see section 2.4 which follows) and the complex geology of the site demand that each site be evaluated on its own merit. In fact the original hydrogeological study identified anomalies in one of the test wells that is not addressed in the updated study and this anomaly underscores the complex nature of the site and its groundwater.

The main issue here is that the development envelope of most of these lots is far under the stated average lot size in the development. It is clear on the site plan that fitting a well and a septic into these lots is very difficult if the minimum distance between the wells and septics is to be observed. A bad well location would force it to be relocated on the lot and there might not be sufficient room for a properly placed septic. The site plan is attached as an appendix and this complication is clear. Most of the lots have significant areas that cannot house the well or septic due to setback restrictions or areas of solid rock outcropping. Only by drilling the test wells and then placing the septics can the water quality and quantity be ensured.

2 The hydrogeolical study. According to the City's procedures, the developer has had to update the original owner's hydrogeolical studies and submit them for approval by the City. The City passes them to the MVCA who have delegate authority to review the studies. Lacking sufficient expertise, the MVCA sends these on to an independent engineer for peer review. This has been done and the study has been accepted with some minor additional work.

In reviewing the the approved study with an experienced engineer of our choosing, we discovered a serious error that calls the MVCA's peer review into question. There are other issues that we would like to have addressed as well but we begin with the most serious.

The major issue is with the computations that were used to determine that the levels of highly toxic nitrates from the developments septics would be sufficiently diluted by waters flowing through the site to ensure the areas water supply was being protected. This is one of the most critical yet basic evaluations of the hydrogeolical characteristics of the site and it is clearly not correct.

Page 8, section 2.4.4 Groundwater Impact Assessment and Lot Sizes is the section we flagged. The study's author gives the "site area for potential infiltration" as the total size of the development "minus the hard surface areas including roofs, driveways and the internal roadway". What they mean is that everything except those described hard surfaces will absorb water that then goes through the water table to dilute the nitrates and other pollutants from the septic systems. They determine that 51.7 hectares is available. Appendix D to their report then includes the mathematical formula that is used to determine in their words that "the nitrate concentrations at the site boundary ...is well below the acceptable nitrate impact requirement of 10 milligrams per litre established by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE)."

The first problem is that far less than 51,7 hectares is available. The vast majority of this area is exposed bedrock or bedrock covered by less than the 12 inches of soil required to consider covered rock in the computation. There is no mapping of the rock and shallow soil in the study area to allow the effective rock area to be estimated.

More significantly, the study contains no cross section plot (or stratigraphy) to illustrate the groundwater flow in the area. Groundwater flow commonly varies from the water flow on the surface of a given site and it can vary within a site. There is not even a reference to a regional groundwater table distribution or any indication of the ground water flow direction on the site. The study is incomplete in this regard.

Other elements in the equation require explanation. The topography factor figure generalizes the entire area without capturing the slope in the area of the actual housing sites. It is far steeper than noted in parts of the site plan area. The soil factor figure, and the cover factor (in particular given all the rock) both appear to lump the rock and shallow covered rock areas into an open land designation totally inappropriate for the area. The entire computation should be redone.

The study computes the septic envelopes for the development in section 2.4.1 on page 6. This takes the flow of the septics based on the predicted water flow from each home and after reviewing the lot sizes determines that "These septic system envelopes should be readily accommodated on the lot sizes that are proposed for this subdivision (ie average of 0.93 hectares)."

The most cursory examination of the site plan shows that while the plotted area of each lot may well average 0.93 hectares, the amount of rock and required protection of water in the wetland and creek areas of the development, combined with the need to keep development out of the agriculture MDS and the ANSI setback on the north side mean that in most of the lots the house, well and septic are squeezed into a small fraction of the overall lot. This is highly significant.

The Official Plan ( used to guide the planner's actions) for the City of Ottawa dictates a two acre minimum lot size in our City. This is not to ensure enough trees are available to make the lot pretty. The two acres is to ensure that the septic and well can be sited far enough apart to ensure their isolation from one another. Its worth noting that the Carp Ridge Society has studies commissioned in recent years by the City and by the region that recommend between 10 and 25 acres for lots in the Carp Ridge area. Two acres was arrived at after considering the entire region. The studies we have in hand note the unique character of this area within our region while the developer's studies do not.

In this case, the lots have only a tiny area available for the placement of well and septic. Until a successful well is drilled on each lot it will be impossible to determine where the septic will end up and in many cases there is precious little option. That means that the wells and septics could be at the very minimum of separation. In this area of fractured rock its critical that their be the largest possible distance between the well and septic or the water percolating down from the septic will end up going through the cracks to the owners well.

Adding to the problems, the amount of exposed rock (or shallowly covered rock) in each lot means that far less water will be available for infiltration to dilute those nitrates. The two acres is also considered to ensure there is sufficient water but on these lots that can never be achieved.

There are far too many lots in the current plan. A safe number cannot be arrived at until both of these issues has been addressed. We don't know the effective area available for infiltration over the entire development and we don't know the effective size of each lot in hydrogeoligical terms.

"to identify and characterize the shallow subsurface conditions as they relate to the design of septic systems under the Ontario Building Code (OBC)." As already detailed, this has not been completed.

Another goal is to "provide preliminary geotechnical engineering guidelines to the proposed site development". Our engineer felt the use of the word preliminary was unusual and limited the engineering firm's responsibility for work undertaken on the strength of this study.

The study relies on data from testing in 1990 and from 2004. Test wells from the most recent testing are at great distance from each other. There is no general assumption that wells much more than 80 metres from one another will impact each other in standard pump down testing. The arrangement of the test wells and the fact that the ones pumped in 2004 are so distant from each other mean that the results provide no assurance that the data will hold true for the completed development. Again, the site plan clearly shows the problem with squeezing the houses into dense clumps while the test wells are widely spread.

To complicate the issue, the data from the wells is combined with climate data for rainfall to produce a model that will predict the availability of water on the site. The model used is based the Thornthwaite equation. (Normal monthly soil moisture on the site is derived with a simple water budget model that has precipitation and potential evapotranspiration as inputs. The precipitation is observed and the soil moisture and potential evapotranspiration is derived from the observed surface air temperature with the empirical regression equation of Thornthwaite.)

Here is the problem. Without significant soil depth, this equation is not a reliable predictor. It was developed in 1944 to model agricultural crop moisture in large areas and it requires very careful evaluation of the data that is used as inputs. Especially when it is being used to compute smaller areas with complicated soil structures and large variations in season air temperature and humidity. The model was developed for temperate climates and some studies have noted its inherent weaknesses in areas with prolonged snow cover (ie: http://www.library.uu.nl/digiarchief/dip/diss/2003-0115-103049/c5.pdf)

Data in the study from the original well pumpdown testing points to a problem that is not addressed in the updated study. Test Well 2 (page 8 section 3.2.2 in the original hydrogeological testing included in the current hydrogeological document as Appendix A) indicates an anomaly in the rate at which the well recovered or refilled after being pumped down. "the break in the slope of the recovery data after 1 hour suggests that the aquifer transmissivity may be lower at some undefined distance from the well" At the very least this means that the data from that well should not be considered as representative of the entire site and it suggests that further study should be done on the water supply in that general area of the subdivision. Especially since it is in the middle of a concentration of house locations and it remains unaddressed in the updated study.

Given all our previous comments it is clear that a section that mentions tertiary treatment systems should include some detail and recommendations. This means that their mention is without merit and the decisions must be based on conventional Class IV systems.

In spite of the best efforts of City Planners and the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, a plan that was approved by people who represented the citizens of West Carleton is about to obtain final approval without many of their concerns being reflected in it.

It is not too late to fix this to everyone's satisfaction. If zoning can be changed to allow development it can be changed to allow a sensitive area to be purchased for its protection. If the letter of the law in the Official Plan allows for it to be interpreted in ways that are at complete odds with its intent then the interpretation of it should be reexamined and its wording ultimately changed. If the recommendations of the planner who has delegated authority for granting a final approval are to be honored by the local councilor it behooves that politician to fully examine the concerns of the areas residents.