ASPHALTopics | Summer 2014 | VOL 27 | NO3

ENVIRONMENTAL
ESSENTIALS
by Adam Draper
The road to air permits:
How did we get here?
In light of the 40th anniversary of OHMPA and as
an environmental consultant on the Asphaltopics
subcommittee, I was asked to write a brief history of
air permitting in Ontario over the past 40 years. Well
what a coincidence! I discovered that just as OHMPA
was born in 1974, so too was the entity known as the
Ontario Ministry of the Environment!
Now this is not to say that there was no environmental
legislation prior to 1974. In fact, well before this date
a Select Committee was appointed to investigate air
pollution in Ontario. As a result of their 1957 report
entitled Report on Air Pollution and Smoke Control,
the Air Pollution Control Act was passed in 1958.
Unlike today where environmental legislation is the
enacted by the province, in 1958 municipalities controlled
air pollution according to by-laws. The role of the
provincial government was solely as an advisory body.
However, between 1958 and 1963 only a portion of the
municipalities actually passed air pollution control by-laws.
Many municipalities did not want to hurt their industrial
growth, particularly compared to other municipalities
that did not implement similar by-laws.
To address this issue, the Air Pollution Control Act
was amended in 1963 with the province assuming
full management of industrial sources of air pollution.
Although this marks the advent of a formalized permit
system, the fledgling act did not include any fixed numbers
or standards. Needless to say, the new province-wide
system was ineffective at reducing air emissions – in
general, industry’s “innovative solution” was to build
taller stacks to disperse emissions further away!
Industry’s approach did not go unnoticed. As environmental
activism gained momentum in the late 1960s,
environmental groups and the public demanded reform.
Ontario’s response was the Environmental Protection Act
which was enacted in 1971, along with the creation of one
full-time ministry in charge: the Ontario Ministry of the
Environment (MOE).
The first job at hand for the newly formed MOE was to
figure out where to go by understanding the starting
point. So, throughout the 1970s the MOE worked to
create a database and record the current state of the
environment. Armed with this knowledge, new regulations
were passed. For example, the Ontario Regulation 308
(Air Pollution) passed in 1980 included specific maximum
concentrations for air contaminants.
Since this time, the MOE has gathered with industry
and stakeholders approximately every ten years to review
environmental legislation. These meetings have resulted
in two significant revisions to air pollution regulations:
Ontario Regulation 346 (1990) and most recently Ontario
Regulation 419 (2005). These revisions have changed a
fairly simple assessment process and one-page permit
into the significantly more complex application process
and multi-page permit that OHMPA’s members are familiar
with today.
What does the future hold? Most likely ever tightening
regulation which industry must be prepared to meet.
Luckily for you, OHMPA’s Environment Committee has
and continues to work hard on your behalf to help you
navigate smoothly through environmental legislation while
paving the way towards environmental excellence.
Adam Draper is an environmental scientist and aggregate
specialist at BCX Environmental Consulting, a Canadian
environmental engineering company specializing in
providing expert air quality services.
With special credit to Paul Complin, Principal, Compliance
and Permitting, ORTECH
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