An Innisfil family is hopeful the town won’t rain down on its dreams to restart groundwater withdrawals.
Sebastian Corbo was on hand during the May 22 meeting of Innisfil council asking for the town to support his family’s application to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks for a permit to take water for groundwater withdrawals from the site for the purpose of bottled water production.
The Corbos' request is to allow a maximum of 400,000 litres of water per day to be removed.
Corbo said his family was “rekindling the flame” for the business and honouring the memory of his father.
“We’re asking the Town of Innisfil for a blessing to start this new business, which we did have in the past for many years without any complications, without any problems to neighbouring wells,” Corbo said. “I want to continue my dad’s dream.”
The Corbo family owns land at 7306 10th Sideroad. Until 2010, removal of groundwater was permitted for St. Joseph Natural Clear Springwater, the family’s previous business. Operations ceased following the death of Corbo’s father, but the family is ready to re-start under the name Corbo Springwater.
There are two 92-foot-deep wells on the property that testing in the 1990s showed are capable of a 140-gallon-per-minute yield. The request to the ministry calls for a similar rate of withdrawal.
The previous permit, granted in the 1990s, maxed out at nearly one million litres per day. Due to the time that’s lapsed, the ministry required an entirely new permit to be issued, rather than a reinstatement of what was previously granted. Without the town’s permission to apply for that permit, the Corbos can’t move forward.
Big Bay Point resident Megan Varga spoke in open forum, stressing the town should not be in support of the request.
The first time she spoke to council, Varga recalled, was about a decade ago, in opposition to a similar request about one kilometre away from the Corbo’s property. The area, she said, is part of the Alliston Aquifer, a vast, pristine water source that was at the centre of the abandoned Site 41 project.
The land in question on 10th Sideroad was eventually bought by the town and will be the site of a new recreation facility. But this request gives Varga similar pause.
“This is less than a kilometre up the road and they want to do the same thing,” she said. “They have a couple cans out there, and a pump house, and they want to pump water, collect all their millions (of litres) and we all are left with wells in the ground that are dry.”
Varga called on the town to ensure that it does its due diligence before providing any support, including fulfilling its duty to consult with the Chippewas of Georgina Island.
Geoff Rether, the hydrologist retained by the Corbo family, assured council that extensive consultation with Indigenous communities and other members of the public would occur through the ministry's review of the application.
The ministry will “carry on with its scientific review of the available information,” Rether said. “There will be public consultation, there will be Indigenous consultation. It’s the standard process and there’s a lot of opportunity for input.”
Ian D. Wilson Associates Limited, the firm which employs Rether, was not part of the initial testing on the site in the 1990s. Rether has reviewed those findings which stated, at the time, the operation was “low-risk,” as it was “fairly isolated.”
“The nearest offsite wells are about a half a kilometre away,” he told councillors. “Pumping tests were done, water level monitoring was done (and) no impacts were measured to the neighbouring wells.”
Monitoring stations that were implemented prior to the 2010 shutdown will be reimplemented and autonomous, Rether said, matching what he sees in other similar projects he is part of throughout the province.
Deputy Mayor Kenneth Fowler and Coun. Fred Drodge had questions for Rether that focused on the impacts to the neighbours, planned and present.
Fowler spoke somewhat hypothetically about a potential future recreation centre along the 10th Sideroad.
“Say we get a mysterious donor that wants to build the new rec centre right on the property further south that the town has purchased, and we find that the draining of the aquifer is affecting the operations — what does a town have as options at that point?” Fowler asked. “Because we've agreed to the fact that you’re able to take water off your own land ... if there's an issue that arises where does that leave us? Do we do we address it with you? Do we address it with the province? Are we able to pull the permit?”
Rether clarified for council that any permit issued by the ministry won’t be permanent. While the Corbos are looking for a 10-year permit, the ministry could decide to issue a two-year or five-year permit instead.
And even though the Corbos own the property in question, that doesn’t give them carte blanche over what they can do with it.
“Everyone has the right to the reasonable use of groundwater on their property,” Rether said. “By reasonable, it basically states you cannot have a negative impact on your neighbour. So, the monitoring program must prove that the Corbo family is not taking water at a rate that would make what you’re proposing possible.”
Drodge wanted to know what the municipality would do if it received complaints about dried wells in the area. Town planning and growth director Andria Leigh confirmed staff would not address any enforcement of the permit issued to Corbo, as it falls under provincial jurisdiction.
Coun. Alex Waters wanted to make sure a situation similar to what occurred near Guelph, where future development was hamstrung by commitments made for bottled water production, was avoided.
This is a different scenario, Rether said. That case involved a large, multinational corporation, not a local family that supports its community.
“It’s relatively small,” Rether said. “They cannot take so much water that the reasonable use is impacted next door. So, if the town has an interest in developing a property next door, they have to be able to.”
A staff recommendation on whether council should support the application is expected to come in June.
