NOJetsTO held a #Kayaktivist rally at the Harbourfront on Saturday (June 20) to stoke the fires of opposition to Porter Airlines’ proposed expansion of the Billy Bishop Airport.
The Toronto Port Authority is currently undertaking an environmental assessment on the proposal to accommodate a new fleet of Bombardier C-100 series jet airplanes. The plan could extend the runway 200 metres in each direction and see the number of passengers double to almost 5.5 million per year.
The construction of 20-foot-high noise walls may be necessary to mitigate the sound of jet engines. The planned walls will protrude “straight out to the middle of the harbour,” says Trinity-Spadina MP Adam Vaughan. “You are not going to be able to see the sunset from the water’s edge, you’re not going to see the islands from the water’s edge, you’re going to hear jets and smell fumes.”
“I don’t think the airport is viable in the long term and when it is surrendered back to a non-airport use we can turn it back into parkland, which it is currently zoned.”
Councillor Joe Cressy says waterfront is the front yard of the city.
“Revitalization is happening,” says Councillor Joe Cressy, “Why would we risk it all for some silly proposal to turn the ninth largest airport in Canada, which is right here, into the sixth largest airport in Canada?”
Federal NDP candidate and NOJets board member Jennifer Hollett says she recently moderated a discussion at the Harbourfront where speakers had to pause every time a plane went overhead. “[One speaker] turned to the crowd and she said ‘you guys really need to do something about this.”
“I don’t have a cottage, this is my cottage,” Hollett says. “This is where I get to connect with nature and take it all in.”
It’s unclear if the 200-metre expansion of the runway into the harbour would be absorbed within the existing Marine Exclusion Zone, which prevents boats from getting to close to flight paths, or if it would be expanded to maintain the current buffer between the runway and navigable waters. If the Marine Exclusion Zone is not extended, the runway could be as close as 132 metres from where kayaks and other boaters navigate between the lakeshore and Toronto Island.
“Where will the next generation learn to kayak, canoe, sail, powerboat and do stand-up paddleboard yoga?” asks NOJets organizer and avid recreational paddler Evguenia Ignatenko, at the rally.
The Toronto Port Authority held public meetings in December 2014 to explain the environmental assessment process to the public. The meetings were heated.
“The problem with the environmental assessment is it is being conducted by experts hired by Ports Toronto,” says NOJets member Ed Hore. “The experts are presumably going to want to keep their client happy and support their view, which is pro-expansion.”
In response to public pressure, according to Hore, a peer review process is being initiated by Waterfront Toronto to examine the scope of the Ports Toronto environmental assessment.
“I am hoping it will be an independent and credible overview and reality check on what Ports Toronto is doing,” he say. “For example is it safe for planes to be blasting off with jet engines 132 metres from kids in kayaks?”
news@nowtoronto.com | @enviropunk
