GBA and the O’Donnell Point Provincial Park

• GBA engaged in the lengthy public consultation process regarding proposed changes to the O’Donnell Point Nature Reserve, as conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources through its Park Management Review process. For many years GBA also provided the means, via a sub-committee, for GBA’s affected member associations to share their concerns regarding the impact of a reconfigured the O’Donnell Park Nature Reserve on the environment and nearby cottagers.
  
  
• Penny Pepperell, (Sans Souci and Copperhead) chaired the sub-committee. Other members included: Ian Baines, (Manitou Association); John Bascom, Nancy Collyer and Honor de Pencier (Wah Wah Taysee); and Scott Gourley, Donna LaRush and Tim Berry, (Twelve Mile Bay Community Association.)
  
  
• All four cottage associations in addition to GBA wrote letters and attended public meetings. They briefed their cottage association members on various proposals put forward by Ontario Parks, met with senior staff at MNR, encouraged individual cottagers to respond to the call for public consultation, and encouraged Ontario Nature, (at that time the Ontario Federation of Naturalists) and World Wildlife Federation Canada to lend their weight to the discussion.
  
  
• Simply, Ontario Parks proposes to decommission a significant portion of O’Donnell Point Provincial Park, the second highest ecological classification of parkland in the province so that it can be added to the Moose Deer Point First Nation Reserve. This would make contiguous three disjointed parcels of land on the Reserve allowing for community growth and development. The First Nation made their first formal request along these lines back in the 1960s, before the Nature Reserve was incorporated, but it wasn’t until Ontario Parks folded the proposal into their Park Management Review Process in the 1990s, that the process got underway.
  
  
• The Park and the Reserve are situated along one side of a long ribbon-like inlet called Twelve Mile Bay, south of Parry Sound. A string of cottages in 130-foot lots (smaller than the Official plan of the Township of Georgian Bay would now allow) occupy the opposite shore. Between them lies a body of water that has produced alarmingly high phosphate readings in recent years. The exact cause or causes have not been identified but many assume that the readings, which reach a peak in late summer and early fall, are associated with low water levels, intensive shoreline development and the boat traffic coming from the significant marinas in the area. The prospect of further development is of great concern to many cottagers in the area. Others are concerned that parkland, especially an ecologically significant park could be decommissioned for any reason let alone for development.
  
  
• Central to the proposal put forward by the First Nation and Ontario Parks has been a multi-stakeholder group to oversee the protection of the O’Donnell Point watershed, an area that includes parkland, crown land, patent areas, and First Nation reserve. This group, called the O’Donnell Point Ecosystem Protection Group, has been meeting several times a year and sometimes many more times than that, to discuss common concerns and the powers and responsibilities of the group. It has representatives from the First Nation, the Township of Georgian Bay, Ontario Nature, Wah Wah Taysee, Manitou, Twelve Mile Bay Community Association and Sans Souci and Copperhead. The facilitator is Anne Murphy on loan from the federal Indian and Northern Affairs.
  
  Penny Pepperell
  September 21, 2007
  

More information and diagrams of water issues in this area are available here.