October’s meeting of the Grand River Conservation Authority is the usual mixed bag, and the bag will come with a price tag. Budget season is in full bloom (so to speak) with the presentation of the draft budget for 2025, plus there will be follow-ups on the Conservation Areas Strategy and ticketing processes for the Elora Quarry Conservation Area. And since winter is coming, let’s also talk about ice management.
NOTE: This meeting will be in a hybrid format and broadcast from the GRCA Administration Centre on YouTubestarting at 9:30 am.
Correspondence – There are two letter this month, one that was technically just cc’ed to the GRCA about expanding the deposit return program to non-alcoholic containers from the Mayor of Bradford West Gwillimbury, and the other is concerning public safety awareness at low-head dams.
Elora Quarry and GRCA Membership Pass Pilot Project 2024 Update – As you may recall, the GRCA implemented a pilot project this past year to cap the number of spaces reserved for membership pass holders due to the limited parking and the capacity at the beach. According to staff, the program was successful so they are going to make it permanent. No one session was sold out for membership passes all summer, but staff will continue to monitor the attendance numbers and make changes as needed.
Conservation Areas Strategy – After six weeks of consultation, staff will be bring the strategy to the board for a final vote. Feedback included a strong desire to mange invasive species, prioritise climate change mitigation efforts, increased protection for greenspaces, and to enhance strategic partnerships. The report also noted majority objection to the Niska Land Management Plan, but that was beyond the scope of this process. The report doesn’t outline if and how the feedback changed the strategy, but once it approved it will be posted to the GRCA website for all to see.
Permits Issued under Ontario Regulation 41/24 – Time again for the quarterly update about the number of permits issued by the GRCA staff in the last few months. For the third quarter of 2024 there were 136 permits, but only four of them were issued for Guelph.
Water Control Structures Asset Management Plan – You’ve heard a lot about asset management at Guelph City Council, but the GRCA has assets it needs to manage too, specifically flood control infrastructure. Work on the plan included the levels of service needed for each water control structure, dam safety management, inventories of dam and dyke components, condition assessments, a list of the anticipated capital expenditures over the next 20 years, and a template to monitor future modifications and improvements. The plan is a living document that will be updated as new information arises.
Shand Dam Spillway Stoplog Gains Refurbishment: Tender Award – Some remedial repair work needs to be done on the Shand Dam in Fergus. BGL Contractors Corp has the winning tender of $55,860 excluding HST, but the board will be asked to approve an overall budget of $611,446 with a 10 per cent contingency.
Membership, Ticketing, and Equipment Rentals System: Request for Proposals – Matching with the report above about ticketing at the Elora Gorge Conservation Area is the need to come up with a better system to manage the ticket-buying process. For the last year, the GRCA have been using their Shopify store to issue advanced entry tickets, but staff would like to use the services of ParkPass in Toronto to fill that function going forward, signing up for a three-year term for $215,000 excluding HST.
Cash and Investment Status – As of the end of September, the GRCA had Notes Receivable in the amount of $66,254,471 with outstanding cheques written in the amount of $88,872.
Financial Summary – Getting closer to the end of the year, the financial staff are expecting a surplus of $352,000 for the end of the year. There was an increase to self-generated revenue, as well as $25,000 in increased provincial funding along with a decrease in major maintenance expenses. For those most part though those savings were offsets by increased spending in other areas, specially in the case of one-time increased costs to the construction of the new Nature Centre at Guelph Lake.
Budget 2025-Draft 1 – The GRCA’s budget for 2025 has gone up by just over $1 million to $37,907,688, which means that the request for funding from municipalities has gone up by about 3.5 per cent (notably half-a-point short of Mayor Cam Guthrie’s request for a four per cent ceiling). Among the main challenges with the budget are inflation and supply chain pressures, fluctuations in demand at conversation areas, ageing infrastructure and increased demand on managing more passive lands.
Budget 2025-Draft: Municipal Apportionment – There’s the budget, and then there’s the portion of the budget covered by each member municipality. That’s the apportionment, and the board has to approve the apportionment which in Guelph’s case is $1.837 million. That’s an increase of a little over $48,000 for 2025 or a 2.7 per cent increase.
Fee Policy: Planning and Regulations Permit – As presented at last month’s meeting, the board heard about proposed increases to the permitting fees, including plans to get the plan review fees to a 100 per cent cost-recovery model. The board will seek to approve the new increases, which will be phased in over the next several years, but there remains the possibility that the Ontario government may freeze fees again for 2025 like they have for the last two years.
Fee Policy 2025 – No fee increases are planned for the outdoor education programming for next year but camping fees after going up due to increased demand, which also creates additional staffing and maintenance costs. The GRCA will also be introducing a deposit for life jackets to deter thefts, two pavilions at Guelph Lake will be available to rent again, and sanitation dumping will no longer be allowed at Rockwood. Hunting fees at Luther Marsh are also going up, and so is the six-month trailer storage fee. As for planning and permitting fees, those may be changing depending on whether or not the ministry continues the free on fees that expires at the end of this year.
2025 Board Meeting Schedule – With the exception of July when there’s no meeting and December when they hold the meeting earlier in the month, the GRCA board will continue to meet on the fourth Friday of every month.
Ice Management Plan – You might say, “there hasn’t been a lot of ice lately”, and yet, the GRCA needs to develop and implement an Ice Management Plan. The plan is meant to raise awareness of potential ice jams, anticipating when break ups might occur, and how to monitor conditions during a break up. Ice jams can be tied to flooding along with the watershed, which is the number one priority in the mandate of any conservation authority.
Current Watershed Conditions – So precipitation for September was below average, and for the first half of October weather stations reported that they only received about 40 per cent of the normal rain fall. Also, the average temperature for September was two degrees higher than usual and 1.1 per cent higher for the first part of October. Guelph and Luther Dams though are showing normal levels of operation for this time of year, but the forecast portends above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation for the next three months.
Guelph Politico 