Alto & the Frontenac Spur

The Frontenac Spur is a geological feature that has had major economic and social implications in the way communities have developed in Frontenac County, ever since the first European settlers arrived.

After loggers removed the old growth forests in the 19th century, settlers began receiving land grants to move in, clear 5 acres and build a 16x20 house within 5 years. They then receive title to a 100 acre lot.

Those whose property was located on the Frontenac spur, an anomalous extension of the Canadian Shield that cuts deep into the south-eastern corner of the county, found pink granite rock outcroppings dotting the landscape, and often within inches of the surface underneath a thin layer of soil, the rich roil having been washed away when all the trees were cut down.

Successful farm land in Frontenac County was limited to the lower areas on the Limestone substrate, in a small corner of what is now Storrington District, in South Frontenac, and into both Loughborough and Portland.

On the Limestone, there was an opportunity to develop prosperous farms, to the north and east, mining and hard scrabble farmland. The relative prosperity in parts of South Frontenac, Central and North Frontenac in recent decades, has come courtesy of the lakes that were formed on the spur, attracting seasonal residents from urban centres and fostering a trades and service based economy locally.

The two geological realities in Frontenac County, is also responsible for a diverse ecology in the watersheds that have been developing on and off the spur during the most recent ice-age.

The unusual geology of the Frontenac spur has always underpinned the ecological, social and economic reality in our region. Now, with Alto coming to the region to see how to put a fast train through Eastern Ontario as cheaply as possible, the Frontenac Spur is suddenly front page news as well.

Andrew Hyett is a retired geologist from Queen's who ran a company called Yield Point, experts in monitoring “rock mass and reinforcement behaviour” for the mining industry. He lives in Glenburnie, and at one time owned a cottage on Canonto Lake.

With his colleague from Queen's, Ron Peterson, Hyett has quickly and intensively been involved in a new project that draws upon his background as a geologist, looking at the claims made by Alto about where it would be best to put in a high speed rail line, through Frontenac County.

This research led to him being asked by Save South Frontenac to speak at two information events they sponsored last Saturday (February 21) in Sydenham and Inverary. It also led him to build his own website, Altocitizenresearch.ca to collect and disseminate his findings. The site is linked to the SaveSouthFrontenac.ca website.

The question at the heart of his analysis is the claim by Alto about the rail project in Eastern Ontario, where the company is considering two potential corridors within which to put the line, the southern and northern corridors.

In his site, Hyett notes that the debate about the two options is based on “A cost comparison — roughly $50M/km for the southern route versus $80M/km for a northern one has been publicly circulated and cited in a Senate committee submission. These numbers are actively influencing a multi-billion-dollar, irreversible decision about where high-speed rail will go.

Hyett started his research in order to verify this claim, and “what I found is that Alto is made up of people who know about politics and public relations but have no expertise in how to build high speed rail. They do not have a team of geologists on staff to consider the costs they are talking about.”

So, he looked himself, and what he has found over a couple of weeks, is all about the characteristics of the Frontenac Spur and how they relate to large infrastructure.

“Twice geologists looked at finding a route through Eastern Ontario, north of Lake Ontario, when they built the CP rail in the 19th century and when they built highway 7 in the 1930s, and each time they found a really good solution, the highway 7, which is why Highway 7 is where it is and why it is straight and efficient,” he said.

The savings in crushing costs by going over Limestone as compared to granite, which to Hyett is the only basis for the cost differences touted by Alto, comes with other factors Alto has not looked at.

This first is that even though it is a lot more expensive to crush granite than it is to crush limestone, granite makes a harder, less permeable substrate once crushed. This impacts not only on the ultimate cost of construction, but on the quality and durability of the end product.

He also points out that the southern route does not avoid the Canadian shield entirely. In order to get to the limestone north of Sydenham and Harrowsmith, the line must first pass through what Hyett calls the Frontenac Terrane.

Hyett says that building and operating high speed rail service is a very precise technological enterprise, and the stability of the line that trains speed through at 300 km/hr is paramount.

And this is where another feature of Frontenac County's major watersheds comes in. The Mississippi and Rideau Watersheds drain to the east into the Ottawa River, whereas the Cataraqui and Quinte, as well as the Trent further to the west, all drain to the south into Lake Ontario. And there are implications for an east-west rail line.

“The tolerance for any shifting is very, very minimal,” Hyett said at the public meeting in Sydenham, “and the fact that the water in the southern route drains over the proposed line towards Lake Ontario, through a soft, broken substrate, will likely lead to more maintenance costs than running over hard granite that runs the same way as the water does.”

Dr. Hyett is careful to point out that his research is not really about trying to convince Alto to shift focus onto the northern corridor, it is about exposing that Alto has not provided the detailed information that goes into making a decision it is contemplating in this particular case.

In terms of the route decision, he lists five demands to Alto, demands that he says are grounded in “standard engineering practice.”

These demands are for Alto to: Release the geotechnical assumptions behind all published cost estimates, Commission and publish a geotechnical investigation of the Highway 7 corridor, Apply equal geological scrutiny to the southern corridor, Do not foreclose any route on the basis of unverified claims, and Establish an independent geological review mechanism

Hyett is convinced that Alto is not releasing this information because it has not gathered it in the first place, and this makes him question all of Alto's claims about the project, including those about the economic benefits the project will generate over time.

“I do not want to make enemies up north by saying the project should be located there,” he said in a phone interview on Sunday, “what I am really saying is that Alto's credibility should be questioned, and in doing that, all of the claims about the entire project should be questioned.

“This extends to financial claims, potential ridership claims in the future, the cost of maintaining the tracks over decades, everything about the project,” he said.

Bill C-15 and the next steps in Alto’s speedy process

In the short term, Hyett, as well as Save South Frontenac and others, including Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston MP Scott Reid, are looking at the implications of a sub-section of the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-15, that is currently being considered by Parliament. The section called “The High Speed Rail Network Act” proposes to amend the expropriation act for lands deemed necessary for the rail line, including lands in Frontenac County. Aside from stripping away landowners' limited rights under the Expropriation Act, Bill C-15 will allow Alto to trigger provisions immediately after it completes the corridor selection exercise, which is scheduled for the end of this year.

At that time, Alto is expecting to not only decide whether to choose the northern or the southern corridor, it will narrow down its focus onto a 1 km wide corridor, through the entire 1,000 km line, including Frontenac County.

Under Bill C-15, Alto will have the authority to freeze development on properties within that corridor, for two years.

In discussing this measure, Minister Steven MacKinnon said on February 2nd, “A freeze on work is actually a courtesy to landowners so they don't end up planning significant improvements to a piece of land”.

The standard time-frame for this type of measure is 120 days, and only under Bill C-15, only for this project, it is two years.

For property owners in Frontenac Canada, whether they live on Alton Road in South Frontenac, Bell Line Road in Central Frontenac, or on Road 506 in North Frontenac, this turns Alto into a negative lottery.

For those who are bypassed, nothing happens, but those who are chosen are facing the first stage of expropriation, in very short order.

Two historical cases were cited at the meeting in Sydenham, by members of Save South Frontenac, the Pickering airport project that was never built and the Mirabel airport project that ended up being built at a fraction of the scale originally envisioned. In both cases, excess lands remained in the hands of government for decades, leaving the original landowners with no legal recourse.

In addition to linking up with Dr. Andrew Hyett's research, Save South Frontenac has linked up with the CTA (Corridor Train Alliance) initiative. This initiative calls for the Hwy 401 corridor to be considered for a new passenger rail project, instead of the route between Ottawa and Peterborough.

Although this corridor was jettisoned before Alto was even set up last year, and would require either changing Alto's mandate or closing it down entirely and starting again, advocates are jumping onto the position taken by both the City of Kingston and Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretson that a Kingston stop for the high speed service is in the interest of Eastern Ontario, and the ultimate success of the project as a whole.

Alto was discussed briefly by Addington Highlands Council last week. If the Northern Route is chosen, it will have a direct impact on the narrow township, which runs from Hwy 7 all the way north to Denbigh, in the heart of the Canadian Shield.

Deputy Reeve Ken Hook, who was the most positive towards the project among those on council, said the following: “The way I feel is if it’s good for Canada as a whole, then I'd probably support it. We all know about how NIMByism can slow, or stop, good projects from happening.

“However I'm not convinced that this Alto project is going to be the best return on investment. I don't think it is going to make us wealthier, it is not going to make us safer, and there are so many other things to spend the money on now that are a priority, like defence, improving our ports ... I'm just not sure that the Alto is going to do it for us.