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Federal Infrastructure Minister John Baird overruled his departmental officials to make sure the City of Ottawa got $16 million in federal stimulus funding for the Terry Fox Drive extension project.
The roadway’s route runs through the habitat of multiple threatened species, putting severe limits on when crews can do the construction work.
In an interview Monday, Baird said his officials were concerned the roadway project could not be completed by the time federal stimulus money runs out in March 2011.
Baird said he trusted city officials, who assured him the road could be built in time.
“My department officials had real concerns it could be done by March. I overruled my officials and gave the city (a) full vote of confidence,” Baird said. “It’s a great project.”
Baird said the federal government has “moved away from micromanaging things,” to give municipalities more control over projects.
However, he added, the city will bear the cost to complete the roadway if the federal money runs out before it’s finished. “With flexibility comes responsibility,” he said.
The road project — a $47.7-million, four-kilometre extension of Terry Fox Drive, north of the Queensway — is being fast-tracked by the city to take advantage of $32 million in federal and provincial stimulus money.
If built, the road will form an arc connecting Kanata Lakes to Morgan’s Grant, cutting through undeveloped land that includes hardwood forest, marshy wetlands, disused farm fields, and part of the Carp River floodplain. Over the following few years, the area inside the arc will be filled with housing, while the area to the north, outside the arc, will be left as natural habitat.
However, construction of the roadway has raised environmental concerns, as its proposed siting runs through wetlands identified as critical habitat for amphibians and reptiles, including the endangered Blanding’s turtle.
Building the roadway will also mean cutting down endangered butternut trees, uprooting endangered American ginseng plants, and disrupting the habitat of federally protected migratory birds.
The lead turtle scientist with the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, Dr. Ron Brooks, has already warned the road could wipe out the local population of Blanding’s turtles unless extreme mitigation measures, such as fencing off the entire roadway, are taken. And Ontario provincial biologist Brad Steinberg has said developing proper mitigation measures for the turtles would require a radio-telemetry study that could take two years.
In order to proceed, the city will require agreements and permits from the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources. Bruce Mason, Ottawa’s manager of design and construction for economic stimulus projects, said the city is still working on getting those agreements from the ministry.
“We’re going back and forth with them, but it’s a long process,” Mason said. “We’re hoping to get it resolved in the next month or two.”
Environmental mitigation measures, meant to help protect some of the animals and plants being disrupted by the construction, are likely to put further time pressure on the project.
In a letter sent to Infrastructure Canada on Jan. 18, Environment Canada recommends a ban on cutting trees between May 1 and July 23 to protect nesting golden-winged warblers and other migratory birds.
That means if permits are not in place to begin tree cutting by May, construction in treed areas will have to wait until late summer.
Environment Canada also recommends no dredging or dewatering of wetlands while amphibians and reptiles are hibernating, a period that lasts until mid- to late April. Further, wetlands should not be dredged after breeding has begun, the letter recommends. It also advises that individual animals, and their eggs, should be transported out of the construction area to a safe new home before anybody starts draining any wetland.
Steinberg said those recommendations would leave a small window in which animals such as Blanding’s turtles could be found and moved after they emerge from hibernation in April.
“You could certainly move them before they laid eggs. That would probably be beneficial, in that they wouldn’t be laying eggs at your worksite,” he said. “That would leave you with Blanding’s turtles for pretty much May, because they start laying in June.”
Mason said the city and its consultants, Dillon Consulting, are modifying their plans to take Environment Canada’s concerns into account.
“We feel we can work with all the comments and still get the project done,” Mason said. “It creates tight windows, but believe me, we’re going to do all we can to get this done … without cutting any corners.”