On February 10 Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources released its Renewable Energy on Crown Land Policy. A decision notice was subsequently posted on Ontario’s Environmental Registry (# 011-6005). The policy modernizes how the Ministry of Natural Resources will consider access to Crown land for use in potential renewable energy projects including hydroelectricity, onshore wind, and solar power.
Where there is a need for renewable energy, but no available or planned transmission or distribution capacity, access to Crown land may be granted for renewable energy development to support the following:
• provincial economic development priorities (e.g., mining development, regional economic development plans),
• off-grid Aboriginal community use, or
• small scale use for local resource management or other activities (e.g. , forestry, mining, remote tourism).
The following Crown lands are not available for renewable energy development:
• an area regulated or recommended as a provincial park or conservation reserve, where the project would not qualify as an exception under the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act,
• an area designated as a dedicated protected area in the Far North, where the project would qualify as an exception under community based land use plans or the Far North Act,
• greenfield water power development (including any reservoirs, impoundments and water control structures or weirs) on a naturally reproducing lake trout lake, or
• an area where existing authorizations or dispositions under the Public Lands Act, Aggregate Resources Act, Oil Gas and Salt Resources Act, or Mining Act would prohibit development.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has released a number of documents outlining its policy and the consultation process that led up to it. Many of the key documents may be found by visiting the following web page: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Renewable/2ColumnSubPage/STDPROD_083438.html.