Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien in a statement, “Approval is a major milestone for this critical project.”

The project cost is estimated at $2.1-billion. That’s for 12.5 kilometres of rail from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair Station in Ottawa’s east end. Plans include a 3.2-kilometre tunnel to run under the downtown core. Michael FitzPatrick with the City of Ottawa says, “Our current transit demand during peak hours in the downtown core is 10,000 people per direction per hour. By 2031 peak hour demand will more than double to greater than 20,000. There simply is no system other than rail in a tunnel that can accommodate that demand.”

Minister Brad Duguid sat down with ReNew Canada editor, Mira Shenker, for a casual chat back in March.

When we interviewed Duguid in March, he said he thought the superministry format was working and that his staff was more than capable of handling both portfolios. In fact, Duguid said the two areas are so interconnected, it only makes sense to bundle them under one minister.

Building on recent short-term infrastructure investments and the $30-billion ReNew Ontario plan, the province is developing a new long-term infrastructure plan, to be released next year. The plan is meant to support the Open Ontario Plan, a recent effort to spur job creation and economic growth.

Duguid was in Hamilton (along with Ted McMeekin, MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale) on August 4 and will be in Toronto August 12.

On May 28, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing posted a proposed regulation on the Environmental Registry for public review and comment.

The proposed regulation sought to enable streamlined land use approvals for the York Energy Centre in northern York Region. The argument was that a new gas-fired power plant was needed in order to provide new, clean, reliable power to the rapidly growing region. Demand has been forecast to grow by three times the provincial average in York Region. At the time, the Independent Electricity System Operator said a solution is needed to ensure Northern York Region has a secure supply consistent with reliability standards

Pristine Power Inc., an independent Canadian developer and operator of electricity and steam generation facilities, released this statement: “We are pleased with the proposed regulation and the commitment to support this grid-critical infrastructure project, and we look forward to the completion of the comment period.” The company holds a 50 per cent interest in the 393-megawatt natural-gas-fired facility, which has a 20-year peaking generation contract with the Ontario Power Authority.

Miller said in a release yesterday, “People will lose confidence in Ontario’s commitment to green energy. We need the full financial details used to justify this price cut.”

On July 2, the OPA proposed reducing the tariff rate for solar energy under Ontario’s microFIT program. It said the change would lower the unreasonably high rates of return that project developers receive on their investment.

Interested parties have until August the 3 to comment on the proposed changes, but Miller said, “You can’t have effective consultations if all the facts are not being released.” Under the Environmental Bill of Rights, Miller is allowed to request that the OPA fully disclose the financial assumptions and methodology it used to calculate the new lower price. But since he made the request on July 16, he’s had no response.
With the new rate, ground-mounted solar installations would receive 58.8 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the electricity they produce. The earlier tariff of 80.2 cents/kWh would only be paid for rooftop solar installations. This 27 per cent cut in revenue affects installations that generate less than 10 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, and typically are installed on residential properties, farms and small businesses. About 11,000 applicants proposing to install ground-mounted solar power would be affected by this looming cut.

Ontario’s solar industry has called a town hall meeting to discuss the causes, impacts, and solutions to the rate change for this Thursday, July 22.

“The poll found that 89 per cent of Ontario residents either strongly supported or somewhat supported wind energy in their region of Ontario,” says Sean Simpson of Ipsos Reid. “Most also agreed (86 per cent) that their municipal government should encourage and facilitate wind energy development, while a similarly high percentage (85 per cent) believe wind energy can provide economic opportunities and benefits.”

This poll comes at the same time that Clarington, Ontario’s Council fights for 550-metre setbacks from residences for two proposed wind farms in the region.

The multi-billion bid to Sydney-based Intoll Group would drive up CPPIB’s shares in the asset to 30 per cent.

Andre Bourbonnais, CPPIB’s senior vice-president for private investments, told Reuters in an interview that the 407 is one of the world’s top assets in its class and fits the pension administrator’s strategy to invest in assets with stable, long-term revenue streams.

Bourbonnais told Reuters, “It fits squarely in our infrastructure strategy. It is a really core asset with long-term, predictable cash flow. A highly generative cash asset that we can own for a very long period of time.”

The vehicles are the Bombardier Flexity 100 per cent low-floor light rail technology already in use in cities like Geneva and Zurich (Switzerland), Linz and Innsbruck (Austria), Lodz (Poland), Eskisehir (Turkey), Brussels (Belgium), Marseille (France), Palermo (Italy) and Krefeld (Germany).

Final assembly of the new LRT vehicles will take place at Bombardier’s Thunder Bay plant.

Work on this project is expected to be completed by December 2010. Nearly 40,000 metres of wastewater pipelines up to 48-inches in diameter will be rehabilitated by Insituform, which has been awarded over $12-million in work with the City of London in the past two years.

City reports indicate the use of various trenchless technologies, including pipeline relining and repair, have resulted in cost savings of $81 million over the last five years. “The City currently uses trenchless technologies for sewer relining and watermain relining. The benefits are many—cost savings, because the road doesn’t need to be excavated; minimized disruption (one day as opposed to four months); and the environmental benefits of not requiring new materials,” said City staffer Justin Lawrence.

The soil recycling pilot is part of Waterfront Toronto’s soils management strategy. This project, the only known soil washing-based pilot plant currently operating in Canada, is meant to help determine whether or not treating and reusing contaminated soil is a viable alternative to the more traditional dig-and-dump approach.

Most of Toronto’s waterfront was created by filling in parts of Lake Ontario with materials that are, by today’s standards, contaminants. The pilot will process up to 50,000 cubic metres of impacted soil in the pilot phase, which may be used in some of Waterfront Toronto’s other revitalization projects.

The soil washing technology—which has been successful outside of Canada— will be applied by private Belgian company, Dredging Environmental and Marine Engineering, and Tetra Tech Construction Canada.

John Campbell, president and CEO of Waterfront Toronto, said at today’s briefing, “By using state-of-the-art technologies and processes not currently used in Canada, we have the opportunity to turn contaminated soils into a resource instead of a liability. This facility has the potential to change the way impacted soils are treated on the waterfront and possibly across Canada.”