Can we afford to continue removing wetlands from New Brunswick?

Industrial parks and wetlands; can we have both? Moncton Industrial Development Ltd. filed an environmental impact assessment in December to build an industrial park covering about 259 acres between Berry Mills Road and the CN rail yard. The site is currently a primarily tree-covered lot which includes wetlands and watercourses.

Wetlands provide incredible value to communities in the face of an evolving climate crisis. Despite this, they continue to be removed at an alarming rate to prioritize economic growth. Can we afford to continue removing wetlands in New Brunswick?

A valuable ecosystem

Wetlands play a key role in regulating carbon emissions by sequestering carbon, making them powerful carbon sinks. Although peatlands, a type of wetland, only account for three per cent of the Earth’s surface, they store a third of the world’s carbon.

Wetlands are natural sponges that can absorb significant amounts of water, a feature that is incredibly important as the climate crisis will increase the frequency and intensity of rainfall and storms. In addition to offering support for both managing emissions and reducing the impacts of our changing climate, wetlands filter pollution, recharge groundwater, and support exceptional levels of biodiversity.

Wetlands are one of the most valuable ecosystems and will play a key role in helping to address the climate crisis, both in terms of managing emissions and reducing the impacts of a changing climate. At the same time, they also provide multiple other benefits in terms of filtering pollution, recharging groundwater, and providing species food and shelter.

The benefits of wetlands may be well documented, but is their conservation and restoration taken seriously?

Paving over paradise

New Brunswick has removed or destroyed over 65 per cent of coastal wetlands in the last 300 years, mostly due to land conversion for industries in the private sector. The New Brunswick Wetlands and Conservation Policy from 2002 lists Moncton as an example of a municipality that has had to spend tax dollars on flood control in areas where marshes have been converted to agriculture and urban land use. In September 2019, CBC reported that $70 million was spent in recent years on flood mitigation alone, according to Moncton officials.

Built infrastructure is responsible for over 60 per cent of global emissions and is driving species and habitat loss. Infrastructure that is replacing wetlands cannot provide the same benefits. The International Institute for Sustainable Development states that nature-based infrastructure (natural systems or engineered systems that mimic natural processes) “cost around 50 per cent less than equivalent built infrastructure while delivering the same — or better — outcomes.” As well as the lower initial costs, nature-based infrastructure tends to be cheaper to maintain and more resilient to climate change.

The benefits of wetlands and the detrimental impacts of their loss are more broadly distributed in the community. Many benefit from cleaner air, reduced carbon emissions, more birds, fish, and wildlife provided by natural ecosystems like wetlands. We also collectively share the additional costs to adapt and build new infrastructure to replace the functions of these ecosystem when they are destroyed. For example, using tax dollars to build new flood mitigation infrastructure. Some functions of wetlands, like offering food and shelter for wildlife, are difficult, if not impossible to adequately recreate with engineered methods.

Going, going, gone

Despite these concerns, wetlands and other ecosystems, continue to be destroyed by prioritizing economic growth. Nearly 70 per cent of wetlands in the province were not destroyed over night; this has been a gradual process that continues to unfold before our eyes. The proposed industrial park construction in Moncton is one project that is part of a bigger picture of dividing up land and building over valuable natural systems a few acres at a time.

This particular project would result in the permanent destruction of approximately 24 acres of wetland. As wetlands are continuously removed, 24 acres represents a larger percentage of total wetlands left in New Brunswick each year.

Local residents have an opportunity to have their voices heard.

Members of the public have an opportunity to submit comments, questions, or concerns on or before April 21, 2023 at 3:00pm to EIA.Atlantic@englobecorp.com. More details on the proposed project can be found through the Department of Environment and Local Government’s website (PDF) under Environmental Impact Assessment Registrations (project 1602).

With a rapidly changing climate now more than ever we need collective solutions and broader community input that more adequately represents the broader impacts that each of these projects.

Will you add your voice?

Tosh Taylor is co-president of Sentinelles Petitcodiac Riverkeeper.