Environmental assessment
Selected EA projects
Other services
 |  | IndEco’s team has been involved in environmental management since 1980. We have conducted environmental assessment (EA) work at both the federal and provincial levels. Our staff has also worked as environmental assessment regulators and as staff of provincial proponents. We have been involved in over 200 EA and related regulatory approvals processes dealing with a wide range of infrastructure development including landfills, energy from waste facilities, sewer and water works, roads, highways and bridges, electricity transmission lines and generation facilities, and natural gas pipelines and storage approvals.
We have extensive experience helping both public and private sector clients to obtain highly complex and controversial regulatory approvals. We have also assisted municipalities and non-governmental organizations to successfully intervene in the EA process. We have managed the EA public consultation process for our clients, including the development of innovative approaches for consultation over the Internet.
Most often clients retain us to help solve difficult or nagging environmental planning problems, for example those related either to methodology or to contentious issue resolution processes. We have extensive experience as expert witnesses, case managers, and advisors to legal counsel as well as over eight years of adjudication experience with the Ontario Energy Board, dealing with energy related environmental approvals.
Our EA Services
Strategic options – identify and assess strategies for winning timely approvals and enhanced stakeholder relations.
Environmental planning – provide guidance on the content and negotiations for EA terms of reference, and ongoing advice on meeting the terms of reference.
Public consultation and issue resolution – design and implement consultation efforts, provide facilitation/issue resolution services. Maintain effective liaison with regulators, reviewers and stakeholders.
Training – provide training in EA planning and monitoring.
Case management – provide case management services as well as strategic EA planning guidance to counsel.
Expert testimony – provide expert testimony on EA planning methodologies and approaches.
Environmental information systems – design environmental information systems to facilitate issues management and the identification and tracking of environmental aspects and impacts, including follow up actions and their results.
Waste Management
Bennett Environmental Thermal Oxidizer EA. Provided guidance on the development of the terms of reference, public consultation process and issues management. Coordination of the consulting team, development of an Internet application to enable the Public Advisory Committee to operate as a virtual committee as required, and development of an application to monitor, and track stakeholder issues and their resolution.
KMS Peel EFW EA. Coordinated the preparation of the draft and final EAs, managed the public consultation and issues resolution process, developed and managed the EA web page. The application was approved without a hearing.
Windsor-Essex Landfill EA. Provided EA planning guidance and effective liaison with the EA regulators that successfully eliminated major government concerns with the draft EA documentation and ultimately led to the approval of the EA for a greenfield landfill site without a hearing.
Kenora Tri-municipal Landfill EA. Facilitated the resolution of disputes with the planning process between citizen groups and the proponent through an independent review of the EA planning process and a series of recommendations which were implemented to enhance the planning process and improve stakeholder relations.
North Simcoe Landfill EA. Developed a planning methodology to correct the problems identified by the Joint Board in an earlier proceeding on the undertaking. Provided expert testimony on these issues that contributed to the ultimate approval of the project by the Board.
Interim Waste Agency’s (IWA’s) 3Rs Initiative. Reviewed IWA's 3Rs initiative, including the planning process, recommendations for achieving 3Rs targets, and case studies on short-term opportunities for increasing recycling for the It’s Not Garbage Coalition.
Ottawa-Carleton Waste Management EA. Provided guidance to legal counsel for the Town of Gloucester on the EA planning and evaluation methodologies.
EA Planning Advice. Provided assistance to several engineering firms dealing with various waste EA approvals. Provided guidance on the development of a joint federal-provincial EA process for the siting of a low-level nuclear waste disposal facility in Ontario.
Transportation
GO Transit Storage Facility. Provided strategic EA planning advice based on the review of EA documentation to assist the City of Toronto in designing and implementing its intervention regarding GO Transit’s proposed new facilities.
Bayview and Leslie Street Extension EA. Provided strategic EA planning advice based on the review of EA for the City of Toronto.
Market Entry Advice. Provided guidance to an engineering company focussed on private sector road works to enter the Class EA market for roads. This included services related to recruiting and hiring of new senior staff to move into this new market.
Advice to Legal Counsel. Provided EA planning guidance to legal counsel regarding the EA for a municipal road and bridge reconstruction project.
Resource Use
Ajax Save the Waterfront. Assisted the organization to successfully intervene in the Town of Ajax’s Class EA process to build a new water treatment plant on the shores of Lake Ontario. The intervention led to agreements with the Town that satisfied the group’s concerns and ultimately led to the approval of the project.
Advice on Municipal Class EAs. Advised an engineering firm on the EA planning process for several projects under the Municipal Sewer and Water Class EA.
Timber Management. Advised the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters on EA planning requirements for timber management undertakings.
Pulp and Paper Mill. Advised an engineering company on the design of an EA planning process for a new pulp and paper mill in Northern Ontario.
Energy
Adjudication. Adjudicated over 50 public hearings dealing with natural gas pipeline and gas storage related approvals in Ontario Energy Board proceedings. Also adjudicated rates cases and policy hearings related to demand-side management and energy supply planning.
Advice on Policy. Provided advice to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) on energy deregulation in the gas and electricity sectors, on codes of practice, incentive regulation, and public consultation. Also provided guidance on the treatment of electricity transmission approvals under the EA Act to the OEB and the Ministry of the Environment.
Guidelines for Pipeline Construction. Advised on and wrote major components of the latest version of the OEB’s Guidelines for the Location, Construction, and Operation of Hydrocarbon Facilities in Ontario. This guideline lays out the Board’s requirements for EA approvals.
EA Policy
Reinventing EA Branch Business. Conducted a comprehensive review of Ontario’s EA Branch practice in both Class and Individual EAs and made extensive recommendations on how to improve the quality of EAs and the delivery of EA Branch services. This report was used by the EA Branch to assist in the development of its positions on legislative change to the EA Act.
New approaches to EA. Provided guidance to the Environmental Assessment Board on streamlining and enhancing the EA adjudication process.
EA Methodology. Developed and wrote a report on Evaluation Methods for Ontario’s EA Branch that is used as a reference for EA planning approaches.
Generic Waste Management. Managed the development of an assessment of technologies, planning approaches, and reviewer expectations for waste management EA approvals for Ontario’s EA Branch.
Our Environmental Assessment Team
IndEco has a strong EA team, with the principals--Judy Simon and David Heeney-- each having over 20 years of EA experience. In addition, IndEco has a strong support team, providing project management, analysis and administrative support. We can also provide experts for special needs from our network of associates and partners in the US and abroad.
Judy Simon –Judy has extensive experience in EA as a regulator, adjudicator, and consultant to private and public sector proponents and intervenors, and public interest groups as well as to legal counsel. She also has extensive experience as a case manager and EA policy advisor to legal counsel and has testified as an expert witness in EA policy at EA hearings. Judy has written numerous EA policies and guidelines for the Ontario Energy Board and Ontario’s EA Branch, has provided training on EA to EA practitioners, and is expert at issue resolution and managing stakeholder relations.
David Heeney–David thoroughly understands and can respond effectively to the needs of proponents having spent several years on staff of a proponent dealing with the siting, risk assessment, market demand and approval requirements for hazardous waste management facilities. David has also assisted legal counsel and public interest groups in the review of various EAs and has been an expert witness on EA methodology at EA hearings. David is also expert in the development of Internet based communication tools for consultation and issue resolution.
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