On May 7 Guelph City Council reaffirmed its support for protective planning for the Paris Moraine as an important area for groundwater recharge. Protection similar to that provided for the Oak Ridges Moraine was intended. Protection for the Paris and other moraines has been endorsed by the Legislature of the Province of Ontario.
Among the necessary actions to be taken by the City of Guelph to implement this adopted policy, the most important is the preparation of a “Paris Moraine” overlay to be included in the Official Plan of the City of Guelph. This overlay would define the extent of the Paris Moraine within the City of Guelph and would specify the restrictions in use and the requirements for planning approval for any proposed change in landuse within the overlay.
Addition of this overlay to the Official Plan is an urgent matter as several intrusions involving landuses that disrupt and damage the recharge function of the moriane have already occurred and several more similar proposals are pending.
The City of Guelph should also engage in a cooperative effort with Wellington County, the Region of Halton and the Region of Waterloo that would result in a similar overlay being instituted for their portions of the Paris Moraine.
A preliminary step in the preparation of the overlay will be to have the boundary of the moraine defined. This is most efficiently done as part of the cooperative effort mentioned above. If at all possible the services of Prof Karrow of the University of Waterloo should be secured for this task. Prof Karrow is Ontario’s most respected geomorphologist and a specialist on moraines. HW