Brian Denney likes to think his job is about building infrastructure, only it's the green kind.
He's in charge of protecting and nurturing one of the GTA's largest tracts of publicly owned river valleys and conservation areas.
Denney compares the network of waterways that stretch from Lake Ontario to the Oak Ridges Moraine to the roads, pipes and power lines found in the urban environment. In their own way, both create the foundations for a great city.
And it's vital not to forget that.
"We want this city to become more dense," says Denney, CAO of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, best known for managing publicly accessible conservation areas and trails.
"But it's really important that, as part of the city-building process, we have a green infrastructure layer that we are working to achieve, along with other aspects of urban infrastructure."
But it's not easy, and time is running out. The authority first drew up a wish list of lands it would like to acquire back in the 1960s – all part of a vision to knit together continuous ribbons of green, flowing from the Oak Ridges Moraine to Lake Ontario, that would preserve waterways, provide conduits for wildlife and allow amenities such as a continuous trail system.
The plan has been updated regularly, but the dream is only half complete.
Acquiring the missing links – some 16,000 hectares – along water systems such as the Humber River, Highland Creek, Rouge River and Duffins Creek is going to be a long slog.
That's because the authority has no money of its own to buy private land, such as the parcels it covets along the Humber near Highway 401.
In recent years, it has received modest but encouraging support from an unlikely source – cash-strapped municipalities (Toronto, York, Durham and Peel regions) that came forward with funds to buy small but significant parcels.
In Toronto's case, the money has come from something called the Source Water Protection Acquisition Program. Other regions simply have dug into reserve funds.
One parcel was the two-hectare Boyer property, which the authority acquired last month for about $285,000 provided by Peel and Toronto. It's situated at the headwaters of the Humber near Glen Haffy.
But the authority's larger dream will remain unfulfilled unless senior governments step in to make it happen.
Municipalities have contributed up to $3 million a year – just not good enough to fulfil a long-term vision.
"If we had $20 million a year for land acquisition over the space of the next two decades, most of this stuff is doable," says Denney wistfully.
"This is not a billion-dollar problem."
The immense area he's referring to covers nine watersheds, stretching from Etobicoke Creek in the west to Duffins Creek in the east, and encompasses municipalities that are home to more than 3 million people – one-fourth of Ontario's population and Canada's most densely populated region.
Councillor Glen De Baeremaeker, an environmental activist who champions a stable fund for the TRCA, says it's a race against time – especially because the agency is often competing for the land with developers. This is especially true in the northern headwaters, where developers and other private interests are staking claims, although strategic purchases are also needed in more heavily urbanized areas to the south.
What's desperately needed is a stable pot of money. That kind of funding would allow the body to move quickly and even approach private property owners to negotiate pre-emptive sales.
As it is, opportunities can be lost by the time funding is put together. Even sellers who would prefer to see land preserved don't want to wait a year or more as the authority scrambles to find the money.
"The government had zero muscle before, and now we have a teeny-weeny muscle," says Baeremaeker, in reference to budding municipal funding.
"Land acquisition for green space is no different from any other public policy issue," says a philosophical Denney.
"You make the most progress when the federal government, the provincial government and the municipal government are all aligned toward the same goal."
Denney says the conservation authority's most significant growth took place in the years immediately after Hurricane Hazel, the 1954 storm that killed 81 people in Ontario and left thousands homeless. Much of the land the body owns today was bought or expropriated in an effort to keep development out of areas vulnerable to flooding.
The province did give the authority a one-time grant of about 1,335 hectares in the Rouge River Valley, near the Toronto Zoo, in 2004. But in general there's been "less alignment" with the conservation authority's goals since the post-hurricane era, says Denney.
He praises the province for stepping in to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine and the new Greenbelt by freezing development.
But much of the protected land still remains privately owned, and unless the authority or some other preservation-minded body acquires it, a change of government could mean it could get built upon one day.
In recent years, as concerns about flooding receded, the authority also has seen its primary focus of flood control and dam-building evolve to address broader environmental concerns.
Denney says environmentally conscious municipal politicians have begun to walk the walk with their budgets, and that gives him hope other levels of government will step up.
"It's about air quality, aesthetics, wildlife in the city. It's about nice places to walk, all coming together in a green space system," says Denney.
"It's about maintaining some aspects of the natural system that are unique to this part of the world ... at the same time that we are building a big city."
Related link: Toronto Star - Clock is ticking for conservation dream
