Are jets next at Island airport?

Port Authority wants to dump tunnel dirt into harbour and many suspect it’s to lengthen the runways for noisy jets

By Barry Lipton –

Tonight, June 14, the Toronto Port Authority will attempt to defend its plan to dump the dirt from its $82.5M pedestrian tunnel construction project into Toronto’s harbour.

The public meeting to air concerns about this is at 7 p.m. at Radisson Admiral Hotel, Salon A49 Queen’s Quay West.

Here’s the TPA’s rationale for this initiative, from this report:

“The Project would improve the safe operation of the (Island airport) as it would create shallower waters to deter marine vessels from penetrating the Obstacle Limitation Surface of the runway.”

Community members aren’t buying it one bit. Here’s a sample of feedback from the community:

• This is a thinly disguised move to grow the length of the run ways, increase the size of the aircraft and eventually move to Jets!

• Are you guys crazy–filling in the harbour to facilitate the airport?

• There’s a $50,000 fine for boats entering the keep-out zone. That’s a heck of a fine. This whole boat safety argument is a red herring in a pike habitat.

• Could the TPA please provide the evidence that marine vessels have been a serious problem in the past? Incident reports, Transport Canada filings, etc.

• It seems a strange smokescreen blaming boaters for a problem that probably doesn’t exist, when in reality it’s a scheme to dispose of the debris created by the boring of the new pedestrian tunnel.

• Could the TPA please provide the evidence that marine vessels have been a serious problem in the past? Incident reports, Transport Canada filings, etc.

• There’s a $50,000 fine (!) for boats entering the keep out zone. That’s a heck of a fine. This whole boat safety argument is a red herring in a pike habitat.

• Could the TPA please provide the evidence that marine vessels have been a serious problem in the past? Incident reports, Transport Canada filings, etc.

• It seems a strange smokescreen blaming boaters for a problem that probably doesn’t exist, when in reality it’s a scheme to dispose of the debris created by the boring of the new pedestrian tunnel.

• I have come to the conclusion that the lake filling is the beginning of the Port Authority’s program to lengthen the runways, and we are kidding ourselves if we think it is anything else.  Porter will love it because they plan to expand. The sky’s the limit for them and longer runways are essential. The TPA has given Porter everything they asked for in the past. Why would they stop now?

• Their stated reasons are completely flimsy. This is not about keeping boats out, but addressing the safety concerns many have expressed about the short runways, and the deep water just off their ends.. The solution to the safety issue is to restrict the use of the airport to those aircraft that can use it more safely.

• Blaming boaters for safety and security transgressions of the no-floating zones to make staged headway on extending the airport`s runways neatly fits the TPA`s fundamentally deceitful modus operandi, as employed to shut off public access to the recently built Ireland Park, to build the TPA`s tunnel.

• It is truly amazing how the TPA spins these assaults on common logic and human decency, expecting that nobody is watching.

• The Port Authority’s plan to fill in the harbour is all about expanding the airport. Perhaps it’s time for city council to set a limit on airport expansion, so it doesn’t take over the entire waterfront.

Barry Lipton is Vice Chairman of CommunityAIR