Behind the Berms

Traveling along country roads in Ontario can provide reassuring views of rolling farmlands, remnant forests and tranquil wetlands. These are the landscapes that help sustain a highly populated and growing province. They produce local food and clean water, prevent flooding and shelter wildlife.

But increasingly, large stretches of these views are blocked by berms — human-made hills of compacted soil.  ¹   These barriers hide a dirty secret: a proliferation of pits and quarries where the vegetation and soil is scraped, dug and blasted away, leaving barren moonscapes devoid of life. This destructive footprint of aggregate mining is a cause for deep concern.

‘Aggregates’ is the industry term for natural materials — sand, gravel, stone and rock — that humans extract from the earth’s surface to make concrete and pavement, to construct roads, highways, subways, sewers, bridges and buildings. They are literally the foundation of city infrastructure and are often taken for granted.

But mining these materials is not a benign activity and should not be overlooked. Aggregates are a finite, non-renewable resource, formed over millennia by geologic forces. Their excavation fundamentally, and often irreversibly, transforms natural ecosystems.  ^{2   3}   Aggregate mining depletes fertile soils and destroys habitat for plants and animals. It alters water flow patterns and wetlands, and exposes new pathways for pollutants to contaminate the groundwater that many rural dwellers depend on for drinking.

Ontario’s growing population requires a continued source of sand, gravel, stone and rock to meet needs for housing, public transit and other infrastructure. However, as with all limited natural resources, these needs must be carefully weighed and balanced with the need to preserve a healthy environment and the crucial services nature provides.

Sustainably sourcing aggregates requires strong regulatory management, long-term planning and public consultation. Unfortunately, the provincial landscape resembles more of a ‘wild west’, with highly permissive policy and weak oversight that allows an uncontrolled proliferation of pits and quarries. The province’s prioritization of this industrial land-use over all other values puts an unfair burden on local communities, violates First Nation rights and represents a reckless disregard for ecosystems and people’s health. Read our report to find out what’s wrong and the ways to fix it.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) facilitates aggregate mining in Ontario. Guided by the Aggregate Resources Act, the Ministry authorizes applications and sets parameters for licenses and permits on both private and so-called Crown land.  ⁶   MNRF is also tasked with minimizing the environmental impacts of operations, enforcing regulations and ensuring the rehabilitation of mined land.

However, while the Ministry almost always approves applications, a 2023 report from the province’s Auditor General (AG) revealed MNRF is under-resourced and often delinquent in fulfilling its oversight role, resulting in thousands of violations by the aggregate industry. Here are some of the worst problems documented in the Auditor General report.  ⁷  

MNRF is supposed to inspect pits and quarries regularly to ensure compliance with regulations such as depth of extraction, limits to dust and vibrations from blasting, minimizing harm to at-risk species and land rehabilitation. But in reality, the Ministry’s shortage of experienced inspectors leads to few sites being inspected regularly, if at all. As a result, many negative impacts from noncompliance go undetected.

When sites are inspected, the amount of non-compliance is high, on the rise and rarely penalized. From 2018 to 2022, less than half of inspected sites were deemed ‘satisfactory’. Sites were rife with violations such as extracting below approved depth and exceeding extraction limits — in some cases by over 1,000 per cent. Others failed to submit reports, pay fees and take actions to rehabilitate the land.

Operators are required to “selfregulate” — inspect their operations and report to the Ministry — annually. The penalty for not doing so is automatic suspension of operations. Despite the seriousness of these issues and the rules, less than one per cent of violations were investigated or charged and no suspensions were enforced.

Operators pay fees to the province for extracting aggregates, but they are too low to cover even the costs of administering the oversight programs run by MNRF. Also, there are extensive instances of unpaid fees that are rarely enforced.

Ontario policy treats pits and quarries as temporary land-uses meant to be rehabilitated post-extraction. However, it’s difficult and expensive to restore sites to their previous vitality. Rich farm soils take decades to regenerate. Restoring wildlife habitat needs specialized knowledge. Aquifers that clean groundwater are dependent on the very sediment that is hauled away. Quarries extracted below the water table pump large amounts of water, which drains surrounding wetlands.

The AG found MNRF doesn’t have processes to ensure rehabilitation and many operators avoid the cost by not surrendering sites, even after extraction is done. Because MNRF has no timelines for required rehabilitation, sites may lay dormant indefinitely. When rehabilitation does occur, the Ministry doesn’t monitor them over the long-term.

National Farmers Union of Ontario: “Humans are simply unable to fully recover the agricultural and biodiversity values and ecological functions, formed over the centuries, that are lost when aggregate extraction proceeds.”  ⁸  

Ontario produces the largest volume of aggregates in Canada, with an average of 160 million tonnes extracted annually.  ⁹   To put this in perspective, 250 tonnes is needed to build an average home, while 36,000 tonnes builds a kilometre of a fourlane highway.  ¹⁰   This production statistic allows the aggregate industry to pressure the province for new approvals. However, the amount extracted is actually only a fraction of what’s already approved. In total, over 6,000 licensed pits and quarries allow the extraction of over two billion tonnes per year.  ¹¹   This means the aggregate approved for extraction annually is 13 times more than the actual quantity that’s dug up.

Ontario’s policy is clear: showing the demand for new aggregate resources before making more supply available is not required. As a result, companies engage in a wildwest style claim staking, seeking multiple approvals even before the full extraction of existing reserves.

To make things worse, MNRF lacks accurate information on the supply of aggregates in approved sites as it doesn’t require operators to report reserves. A 2016 study estimated the Greater Golden Horseshoe region in southern Ontario had reserves of over three billion tonnes in licensed sites which — at current production rates — suggests a 20 year supply.  ¹²   However, the study also found the data limited. In 2023, the Ministry commissioned an updated supply and demand study, but again did not require industry to contribute supply data, instead making it voluntary and anonymous.  ¹³   Approving new destructive pits and quarries without this crucial information is reckless.

Conservation of aggregates through reducing, reusing and recycling could significantly cut the need for additional extraction of ‘virgin’ sources. But the estimated use of recycled aggregate in Ontario sits at only seven per cent and the province doesn’t have effective means to promote recycling.  ¹⁴   One way to do this would be to increase extraction fees. For example, in the United Kingdom — where fees paid per tonne are 14 times higher than here — the use of recycled aggregate is 25 percent. Additionally, Ontario planning policy does not currently include evaluation of different types of housing and transportation development in terms of aggregate supply and demand. Long-term conservation planning that considers all alternatives is desperately needed to ensure responsible and sustainable management of limited and non-renewable resources.

In the context of permissive provincial policy and a lack of oversight for pits and quarries, grassroots community groups are left to take on the powerful aggregate industry to conserve local forests, wetlands, at-risk species, clean groundwater and farmland through David and Goliath fight using processes that are industry-captured and heavily weighed against community voices. Here are some of their stories.

In addition to degrading natural ecosystems, gravel mining contributes to the climate crisis by feeding the production of cement and concrete. Cement is created using mined limestone, which is added to sand and gravel to produce concrete. The cement industry produces a whopping eight per cent of global climate emissions, a greater share than any country other than the United States and China.  ³⁰   While the Ontario aggregate industry insists it needs new pits and quarries close to construction sites to lower emissions from transportation, it has yet to take accountability for its contribution to the much larger emissions from concrete production. Unconstrained urban sprawl and new highways, such as the proposed Highway 413, contribute to emissions in both their construction and in facilitating vehicle-dependence. The province can reduce emissions, and the needs for more aggregates, by enacting policies that instead promote dense housing where infrastructure already exists.

The Wilderness Committee has partnered with the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition  ³¹   to protect Ontario from unnecessary gravel mining. We draw public attention to the regulatory defficiencies and support on-the-ground grassroots groups in their struggles.We call for a provincial moratorium on new pit and quarry approvals until regulatory reform and long-term planning can take place to protect nature, water and farmland, increase the weight of local perspectives in land use planning, and honour treaties, rights and obligations with Indigenous Nations.

Your donation supports on-the-ground work to protect the natural environment in Ontario and education that inspires us to push for stronger environmental policies and oversight.

Thank you!

1.  Open-Pit Mining Definition. AngloAmerican, 2023. 
2.  Value-For-Money Audit: Management of Aggregate Resources. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Management of Aggregate Resources, Dec. 2023.  
3.  Aggregate Extraction in Ontario: A Strategy for the Future. Canadian Environmental Law Association, Mar. 2011.  
4.  Semeniuk, Ivan. “Northern Ontario’s Turtle Tussle Pits Scientists against Quarry Builders, with a Threatened Species Caught in the Middle.” The Globe and Mail, 3 Nov. 2019.  
5.  Aggregate Pits and Quarries: Adverse Effects and Negative Impacts on Human Health and the Environment. Gravel Watch Ontario, Jan. 2009.  
6.  Javed , Noor. “It’s like David and Goliath”: Doug Ford’s New Highways Will Fuel Demand for Gravel from GTA Quarries. Local Residents Are Fighting the Spread of the Mines. Toronto Star, 25 Feb. 2022. 
7.  Aggregate Resources Act. Government of Ontario, 24 July 2014.  
8. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Management of Aggregate Resources. Ibid.
9.  Reflections and Proposals on “A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.” National Farmers Union - Ontario.  
10. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Management of Aggregate Resources. Ibid.
11.  Aggregate Resources and Production Statistics in Ontario. The Ontario Aggregate Resources Corporation (TOARC), 2024.  
12.  Find Pits and Quarries (Interactive Map). Government of Ontario, 22 July 2019.  
13.  Supply and Demand Study of Aggregate Resources. Ontario Stone Sand & Gravel Association (ossga.com), Aug. 2016.  
14. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario Management of Aggregate Resources. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16.  Conserving Our Rural Ecosystems of Burlington (CORE Burlington). 
17.  Semeniuk, Ivan. “Northern Ontario’s Turtle Tussle Pits Scientists against Quarry Builders, with a Threatened Species Caught in the Middle.” The Globe and Mail, 3 Nov. 2019. 
18.  McIntosh, Emma. “Quarry Quarrel: Turtle Lovers Decry Ontario’s Appetite for Construction.” The Narwhal, The Narwhal, 13 Jan. 2023. 
19.  Shotyk, William, and Powell, Michael. “Opinion: The Cleanest Water on Earth Is in Ontario. We Must Protect It before It’s Too Late.” The Globe and Mail, 2 July 2021.  
20.  Cecco, Leyland. “The Canadian Town of Tiny Has the World’s Purest Water. A Gravel Mining Operation Could Ruin It.” The Guardian, 25 Nov. 2021.  
21.  “Our Water Is Under Threat”. Save our Water Tiny.  
22.  “Top Aggregate Producing Municipalities of Ontario (TAPMO)”. 
23.  Ross, Nicola. “Pit by Pit.” In the Hills, 20 Sept. 2022.  
24.  Forks of the Credit Preservation Group. 
25.  Morgan, Rachel. “Aggregate Giant Taking Caledon to Land Tribunal over Looming Blasting Quarry Battle.” The Pointer, 30 Nov. 2023. 
26.  Planning Report & Aggregate Resources Act Summary Statement. City of Ottawa, Dec. 2021.  
27.  Friends of Burnt Lands. “Cavanagh Quarry Seeks to Undo Environmental Protections.” The Millstone, 12 May 2022. 
28.  “Burnt Lands Alvar.” Wikipedia, 10 Oct. 2021. 
29.  Friends of the Burnt Lands. 
30.  Timperley, Jocelyn. “Q&A: Why Cement Emissions Matter for Climate Change.” Carbon Brief, 13 Sept. 2018. 
31.  Protect Ontario from Unnecessary Gravel Mining. Reform Gravel Mining Coalition.