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May 30, 2004
TREE SITTERS TRY TO SAVE ESCARPMENT
by CATCH (Citizens at City Hall)
At least three people have occupied trees on the face of the Niagara Escarpment, immediately adjacent to an area where the City of Hamilton expects to start blasting for a massive road cut. The protestors set up elaborate platforms in the early hours of Sunday morning in a small wooded area just west of Mt. Albion Road, and just east of the point where the Red Hill Creek expressway is scheduled to cut an 80-metre wide swath through the face of the escarpment.
 Hamilton city council approved $56.5 million in contracts for the expressway on May 12, despite not yet having approvals from four government regulators. They do have a permit from the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC), but it has also been challenged by groups opposing the expressway project. The NEC has opposed the road since its inception in 1979 but was ordered by the provincial government in 1987 to approve the project.
The decision to create the massive new cut in the escarpment was made by Hamilton in the late 1990s, but the 17-year-old permit has no sunset clause, no requirement for a site plan and only five very general conditions.
Several groups, appeared before the NEC at their April and May meetings to try to prevent the blasting. They were told the Commision can do nothing about the 1987 permit, even though it opposes the expressway and the damage it will do the escarpment World Biosphere Reserve.
Representatives of the aboriginal community are scheduled to speak to the Commission at its June 17 meeting. They believe several First Nations hold treaty rights to Red Hill Valley , and also argue the road will disturb sacred aboriginal burials. There are 21 identified archaeological sites in the path of the expressway, including a 13 th century Iroquois village and an 11,000 camp that provides some of the earliest evidence of human habitation in Ontario. Part of the latter site will be destroyed by the proposed blasting.
The provincial government has committed about $120 million to the expressway project with the remainder of the $200 million project being borrowed by Hamilton.
Some preliminary blasting activity began last week just above the location occupied by the tree sitters where Hydro One is relocating two electrical towers to make way for the planned expressway. Work on the road cut is expected to begin shortly, but would endanger the protestors if they remain in the trees close to the site.
The presence of the tree sitters was announced at a media conference Sunday afternoon called by Kevin Hamilton – the city's recently named Environmentalist of the Year.
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