The following article appeared in the January 8 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
City hall is looking at creating a “one-of-a-kind” park for pollinators – including bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and moths – as part of its plans for turning the former Eastview landfill site into a big community park.
“It’s going to be one of a kind. It will be the first in the world of its size,” said Coun. Vicki Beard.
“It’s going to really bring an awareness of the importance of pollinators to Guelph,” said Beard, a rookie Ward 2 councillor who won an international award in October as a pollinator advocate.
The idea will go Friday to a meeting of a city council committee. With the proposal are staff recommendations to create recreational facilities – including lighted sports fields and a lot more – on the part of the 200-acre Eastview site that was never used as a landfill.
Only 111 acres were landfilled, and it’s being proposed that this land be used partly for recreational facilities such as toboggan runs and trails. It would also be used for tree and shrub plantings and open meadows, which is where the proposed “pollinator park” would go.
The city has been talking for years about what to do with the landfill site, which was opened in 1961 and closed in October 2003. It contains about four million tonnes of solid, non-hazardous waste, says a new city hall report that goes to the community design and development services committee Friday morning.
The city considered various uses, including an 18-hole golf course or a nine-hole golf course with sports fields, but in 2002 council approved using it for a community park.
The non-landfilled northeastern part of the site is to include:
• irrigated and lighted sports fields comprising four soccer pitches and two football fields
• hard surface play area, including basketball and tennis courts
• children’s play structures
• water play
• picnic area with shelters
• outdoor ice rink
• recreational trails
• concession/field house/washrooms building.
The site, which will also have a satellite park maintenance facility, is to have vehicle access from Speedvale Avenue and Watson Parkway.
It’s being proposed that the park be developed in phases between 2009 and 2013. Council has already approved capital funding of $240,000 and it’s being asked to approve $600,000 more in the 2008 capital budget. That would be followed by another $2.5 million in the 2009 to 2013 capital budgets, the report said, for a total cost exceeding $3.3 million.
This doesn’t include the cost of designing and building a pollinator park, which would involve hiring a consultant to handle the project, the report says. No cost estimate is given.
“Staff would work towards finding any funding opportunities,” it says, “and some of the possible sources could be corporate sponsorships, fundraising by community groups and federal funding in support of the pollinators protection campaign.”
“Staff believes developing the passive areas of the landfill with pollinator-friendly planting would help protect the pollinators and the city would be known as a leader in supporting the pollinators protection program.”
The report says North America has experienced a significant decline in pollinators in recent years. They are endangered by development, pesticides, insecticides, and bacterial and fungal disease, which destroy or fragment their natural habitats.
“Though not widely recognized, pollinators are crucial for crop production and for allowing plants to grow and thrive,” the report says.
“Most foods, beverages and many medicines are derived from crops that are pollinated by animals. Without them, crop production is put at risk.
“Pollinators are key to reproduction of wild plants in our fragmented global landscape,” the report says. “Without them, existing populations of plants would decline, even if soil, air, nutrients and other life-sustaining elements were available.”
The proposal for a pollinator park calls for that part of the site to remain as a meadow, with native plants chosen to provide food and habitat for pollinators.
“Many of the pollinator-friendly plants attract a diversity of pollinators, not just one specific type, and pollinators need a continuous succession of flowering plants throughout the growing season,” the report says.
University of Guelph landscape architecture students have already come up with some ideas and concepts for a pollinator park, it says.
Beard said such a park would have a big educational component, and the University of Guelph would be able to do research there.
“Schools will be able to go there and learn what is really happening with pollinators and why we need them,” said Beard, who in October won the Pollinator Advocate Award for 2007 from the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.
As part of the push for a pollinator park, the city and the U of G will put on a two-day public education forum on pollinators at the Guelph Youth Music Centre on March 7 and 8, she said.