‘Ecological breakdown’: Environmental devastation from Highway 413 becoming clearer; Brampton & Mississauga at significant risk

To curtain residents from the threat of climate change Brampton and Mississauga have made ambitious pledges to protect the water and air that surround two of Canada’s largest cities—with mixed results. 

Mississauga is certainly moving quicker, while Brampton’s green efforts suffer from funding cuts by Mayor Patrick Brown. Both municipalities have declared a climate emergency and local elected officials and staff need to make their cities more resilient to climate change: due to their geography in the middle of the Lake Ontario drainage basin which rings the great fresh water reservoir and is larger than Nova Scotia, both are particularly prone to flooding. The vast flows of fresh water that run down from the Greenbelt feed some of the most sensitive ecosystems in the country. 

Collectively, the majestic Great Lakes—where more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh water lies, where more than 30 million people get their drinking water and where the surrounding airshed protects all life around them—are the lungs that sustain much of our continent. 

The Lake Ontario Basin is a critical part of the province’s southern ecosystems. A network of rivers, creeks and small tributaries that run down from the Greenbelt make Brampton and Mississauga vital to water and air quality protection, but prone to flooding.

(Michigan Sea Grant)

Mineral-rich glacial soil deposits and the abundance of pristine water that naturally irrigates the land make much of Peel Region perfect for farming, which dominated the area for more than a hundred years, before developments paved over fields to make way for an explosion in suburban growth.

Premier Doug Ford’s newest highway will zig through river valleys and zag over agricultural land. It will cut watersheds and pave over habitats that protect many of Ontario’s most threatened species. The region’s remaining agricultural corridor, which sits immediately below the life-sustaining Greenbelt will be bulldozed to make way for the 400-series highway and the sprawling subdivisions developers are already preparing to build, if they get their way.

“It would be devastating to the watersheds and remaining natural heritage in the GTA and prime agricultural lands, without really any evidence [it] would actually do anything to alleviate congestion,” Tony Morris warns. 

The Conservation Policy and Campaigns Director for Ontario Nature told The Pointer that he considers the construction of both Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, another controversial highway project being pushed by the PC government, to be “the wrong direction for the province.”

The scale of pollution created by the 413 transportation belt, rounding its way from Milton to Vaughan, and the inevitable environmental wreckage are becoming clearer.

In a recent report, Environmental Defence, one of the main advocacy organizations rallying against the project, highlighted the extent of the damage Highway 413 will have on the three major watersheds trapped within its expansive radius: the Humber River, Etobicoke Creek, and Credit River—which due to decades of development already have less forest and wetland area than federal guidelines recommend.

Their critical arterial waterways literally breathe life into the once interconnected network of ecosystems throughout Peel.

The environmental threat posed by Highway 413 is not new. Numerous investigations by The Pointer have shown the long list of destruction, including the threat to endangered species; the pollution it would pour into local waterways; and how it would disrupt the natural movement of wildlife through these urban watersheds. 

The report analyzes the cumulative impact of these threats, highlighting the consequences of the project and the dire risk it poses to watersheds across Peel—watersheds already severely degraded by intense urban development. 

Within all three, including their headwaters in the Greenbelt, Highway 413 will jeopardize the ecological functionality of these ecosystems and endanger critical habitat for a large number of species at risk, including over 65 percent of the remaining habitat for the endangered Redside Dace in Canada, which inhabits the Credit River and Humber River watersheds.

The Government of Canada’s Recovery Strategy and Action Plan for the Redside Dace restricts residential and commercial development which pose the largest threat to the fish’s population in all three water courses.

 

The endangered Redside Dace faces extirpation in southern Ontario if Highway 413 is constructed. It would cut through large portions of the species' remaining habitat (highlighted in purple). 

(Environment Canada)

Highway 413 would disrupt critical habitat connectivity areas in the Humber River and Etobicoke Creek watersheds, essential for preventing biodiversity loss. A previous investigation by The Pointer found the highway threatens 29 species at risk, including federally protected species at risk like the Western Chorus Frog, Red-headed Woodpecker, Rapids Clubtail, and Bank Swallow.

Some of the species that are at risk of harm should Highway 413 be built.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer files)

An independent study commissioned by the Liberals in 2018 found the travel time savings from the 413 would be about 30 seconds for the average commuter. And that estimate has been criticized for reportedly including trips across the Greater Golden Horseshoe, not strictly in the area of Highway 413. The estimate from the PC government is 30 minutes in time savings, but critics say this isn’t any closer to the true number either. According to a previous Environmental Defence study, the PC analysis assumed free-flowing traffic on the 413 and it assumed the travel would be across the entire distance of the highway. The PCs have refused to provide detailed information to show what data was used and how their calculations were made. 

One of the most dire threats is the degradation to rivers, streams and other waterways. Highway 413 would worsen the already poor water quality in these watersheds, with urban growth from the new highway projected to increase aquatic salt concentrations significantly. Already, all three watersheds are failing to reach federal targets. 

The Etobicoke Creek watershed, for example, would see chloride levels increase by as much as 49 percent due to the impacts of chemicals from the highway and surrounding commercial/residential development. The streams and waterways in this area already have salt levels due to human use that are harmful to aquatic species.

The report notes: “Any percent change greater than ten means that the watershed conditions will deteriorate significantly.”

The chloride concern is not new to the government; a federal study conducted in 2001 highlighted the “adverse effects” of road salt usage, amid growing dependency to melt ice, on freshwater ecosystems, soil, vegetation, and wildlife.

The Etobicoke Creek is one of the most urbanized watersheds within the jurisdiction of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). For that reason, it stands to be impacted the most by Highway 413 as it is already significantly degraded, meaning those greenspaces and natural areas that are left, are key to its ongoing survival as an ecosystem. 

Highway 413 threatens to more than double the impervious surface cover in the Etobicoke Creek headwaters. This will not only threaten species at risk—there are eight that inhabit the headwaters area south of the Oak Ridges Moraine—but has the potential to worsen flooding in the southern areas, which includes western portions of Brampton and its downtown—which has yet to implement solutions to deal with its preexisting flooding problems.

Cutting off these headwaters from the rest of the watershed has the potential to trigger a catastrophic failure in the watershed. 

“When these areas are fragmented, habitat connection is lost and natural processes slowly collapse,” the report states. “Due to the highly urbanized nature of the Etobicoke Creek watershed, the watershed can not afford to lose more of its natural area. Further loss of natural cover will lead to an ecological breakdown of the entire watershed.”

The situation does not improve in the remaining areas. 

In the Credit River watershed—which has 65 species at risk, the most of the three watersheds—urbanization has already triggered the need for “immediate conservation action and restoration”. And that’s without Highway 413.  

The highway will cause significant species loss due to the destruction of natural areas. Chloride concentrations in the watershed increased 18 percent between 1999 and 2016 and continue to trend upward.

In the Humber River watershed, large portions of natural area would be fragmented by the highway, despite much of these areas being identified “as important for both local and regional habitat connectivity”. Disconnecting habitat significantly reduces the watersheds ability to preserve biodiversity. 

“Loss of biodiversity within the Humber River watershed will lead to the breakdown of critical ecological systems that strengthen the health and well-being of local species and the people in surrounding communities,” the report underscores. 

In an interview with The Pointer, Rebecca Kolarich, Water Program Manager at Environmental Defence, emphasized the need for the federal government to intervene and redesignate the project for a new impact assessment. 

In 2021, the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change designated the Highway 413 Project under the Federal Impact Assessment Act, leading to a suspension of fieldwork as the Project Team worked to meet expectations and legislative requirements in consultation with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) and other federal agencies.

Earlier this year, however, the federal and provincial governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work through these concerns as studies on the highway continued. Premier Doug Ford has said this is effectively a greenlight for the highway, but advocates point out there are still serious hurdles to clear as part of the MOU, including mitigation of environmental degradation and addressing species at risk impacts the province may not be able to prevent, potentially cancelling the project altogether.

A new 400-series highway will send large amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere, setting back emissions reductions by decades.

(The Pointer files) 
 

The PCs are now moving forward with preliminary studies and consultations with private stakeholders, aiming for a swift and efficient construction process, possibly even through a “customized” environmental assessment for Highway 413. The PCs expect the construction of the highway to begin next year, and would need to expropriate land along the proposed route, which spans over 50 kilometers and connects Halton, Peel, and York regions.

Kolarich pointed out that the federal government has legal authority over threats to federally protected species, migratory birds, fish, and Indigenous consultations, asserting that "Highway 413 would threaten these values."

She explained that watersheds play a vital role in supporting wildlife and natural areas.

“It's sort of like the veins in our bodies pumping blood into our hearts.”  

She highlighted the importance of watersheds as vital natural resources for both people and wildlife, providing numerous benefits such as flood prevention, clean air and water, and habitat for many species at risk. 

“They help mitigate the impacts of climate change”.

This should be particularly concerning for Peel’s municipalities; all three have committed to ambitious CO2 emission reduction targets. The loss of natural cover, one of the biggest allies in the fight against climate change, will be one of the most obvious effects of the 413. 

“These ecosystems are key nature-based solutions and are critical components in mitigating the impacts of climate change,” the Environmental Defence report emphasizes. “Woodlands and wetlands store vast amounts of carbon. When destroyed, the stored carbon will be released back into the air as carbon dioxide (CO2). As these natural areas are replaced with Highway development, more harmful emissions will be released during construction, maintenance, and use.”

Morris, with Ontario Nature, cautions that the flooding events this year which were a result of decades of “bad land use planning”—including those in Mississauga’s Credit River watershed— will only get worse as climate change ratchets up the frequency and intensity of storms in Southern Ontario.

“The Don River is a textbook example of what happens when you pave over the majority of watersheds.”

Environmental Defence’s recommendations, including the cancellation of Highway 413—an idea echoed by Ontario Nature—call for accelerating the creation and maintenance of natural heritage systems within each watershed; and promoting stricter policies to ensure long-term protection of natural features and their functions. 

Both Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature propose developing homes within existing urban boundaries while creating frequent and reliable public transit using funds originally earmarked for highway construction. The PC government has not released a cost estimate for Highway 413, but it has been suggested it could be as high as $10 billion. 

“Evidence shows that there's enough land already approved for development and existing urban neighborhoods to build all the homes we need until 2040,” Kolarich said.

Environmental Defence also wants the government to subsidize the tolls for trucks on the “underused” Highway 407 and move truck traffic from Highway 401 to 407 “to ease congestion and reduce time and money for across region truck travel.”

In addition to the Ford government's highway construction plans, these watersheds are also under threat from a proposal by Caledon Mayor Annette Groves to build 35,000 homes across 12 parcels of land, many of which are adjacent to the Greenbelt and home to 24 species at risk.

“We can't continue to sprawl our way out of the housing crisis,” Morris exhorted. “The fight for the Greenbelt is not over.”

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