<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710">Hi folks</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr">I went to Creekside Church this morning. I took video of what I saw. This wetland was a fishery. I saw predators taking advantage of the drained pond. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr">When I saw the fish the first thing I wanted to do was find out what type. I tried to reach them not thinking of the risks and I fell through a thin layer of dry clay into deeply saturated peat and was lucky to escape with my life. It was quicksand. My dad taught me the rules as he was taught: Stay calm, no shifting weight and get the hell out in as few physical moves as possible. I was out in four big steps. If I panicked or took extra steps I would be dead. The rate of the sink was that fast and as you step on the clay it would crack and sink as you take the next step until the ground is solid. Three steps of hell then you hit solid ground. Thank God my dad taught me bog walking as a kid. From that point I traveled in the deer tracks which is what I should have done to begin with. I was an idiot to do that but it did flag the risks. What happened to me could have happened to the guys doing the draining or the ones operating that machinery. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr">Here is the second letter I wrote after videotaping all that I saw at the Creekside Church. The threatened barn swallows flew and swirled around me the whole time. The fish jumping on film as clear as day. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr">I told everybody I could. Letter below.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3710" dir="ltr">Lulu </div><div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3713"><div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3712"><div class="y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3715"><div id="yiv9847632416"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3717"><div style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_3716"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5293"><span></span></div><br clear="none"> <div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br><br></div><div class="yiv9847632416yqt5542552122" id="yiv9847632416yqt88043"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5331" style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"> <div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5330" style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"> <div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5329"> ----- Forwarded Message -----<br clear="none"> <font id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5332" size="2" face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu@rogers.com><br clear="none"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">To:</span></b> "minister.moe@ontario.ca" <minister.moe@ontario.ca>; MIN Feedback (MNR) <minister.mnr@ontario.ca>; Thornton Ian (MNR) <ian.thornton@ontario.ca>; "premier@ontario.ca" <premier@ontario.ca>; Rob Horne <rhorne@regionofwaterloo.ca>; Jim Bogart <jbogart@uoguelph.ca>; "gail.jackson@ontario.ca" <gail.jackson@ontario.ca>; Wildlife Ontario/Faune <wildlife.ontario@ec.gc.ca>; "wildlife.enforcement@ec.gc.ca" <wildlife.enforcement@ec.gc.ca>; "wkm@sixnations.ca" <wkm@sixnations.ca>; "feedback@sixnations.ca" <feedback@sixnations.ca>; Regional Councillors <regionalcouncillors@regionofwaterloo.ca>; Council (all) City of Waterloo <council@waterloo.ca>; Minister (MAH) <minister.mah@ontario.ca>; DionStéphane [NCR] <stephane.dion@parl.gc.ca>; "environment@afn.ca" <environment@afn.ca>; "leona.aglukkaq@parl.gc.ca" <leona.aglukkaq@parl.gc.ca>; Francis Scarpaleggia <francis.scarpaleggia@parl.gc.ca>; MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo) <catherinefife@on.ndp.ca>; MP Peter Braid (Kitchener-Waterloo) <peter.braid@parl.gc.ca>; AADNC-AANDC Ministre-Minister <minister@aadnc-aandc.gc.ca> <br clear="none"> <b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_4306"><span style="font-weight:bold;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_4305">Sent:</span></b> Monday, July 13, 2015 12:44 PM<br clear="none"> <b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_4304"><span style="font-weight:bold;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_4303">Subject:</span></b> Fw: Aquifers being used to drain endangered species/fisheries habitats. in Waterloo.<br clear="none"> </font> </div> <div class="yiv9847632416y_msg_container" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5333"><br clear="none"><div id="yiv9847632416"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5335"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436805968221_5334" style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12071"><span></span></div><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12074" style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12073" style="font-family:HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;">Dear Hon. Ministers</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;">Teluisi Louisette Lanteigne</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;">Tleiawi Gespe'g</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12072" style="font-size:16px;">My name is Louisette Lanteigne and I am a Mi'kmaw Metis and my family is from the Gespe'g district of the Mi'kmaw teritories and currently I live in Waterloo Ontario. </div><div class="yiv9847632416y_msg_container" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12076"><div id="yiv9847632416"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12078"><div id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_12077" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Today I went to the Creekside Church in Waterloo Ontario at 660 Conservation Drive in Waterloo. I did this after reading a Waterloo Chronicle article about how they drained this vernal pond by discharging water in a sewer with a hose. I paid a visit today. The hose was removed but right now the draining is still ongoing because they are using a natural recharge of higher transfer rate nearby to completely drain this wetland area. There is a man made trench connecting the two points. The aquitard is removed and the peat layers are exposed to allow for direct infiltration. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">The pond itself was a natural wetland, with peat under the clay aquitard. The water level in this area was likely uniform so it's not about dropping just the pond volumes but the water of the surrounding area as well. I know the pond was a recharge zone because as I filmed I stepped in one spot and quickly sank like a quicksand up to my knees but managed to get back to solid ground by the Grace of God. The area that I had stepped on was entirely peat and complete saturated undereneith although the top of the soil appeared dried out. There was a very light layer of existing dry clay but the substrait was saturated peat that compresses the minute weight is put on it. I was scared for my life. I can sympathize with the fate of many a wooly mammoth at this point. The pond claimed my flip flops. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Never the less, the slight pool of water along this habitat area contained fish that were in the shallow pools and jumping. I witnessed many threatened barn swallows flying about me. I saw a martin or mink hunting in the area picking off the stranded creatures to eat. I saw three dens, monarch butterflies and many indigenous bee species including what I believe may have been a rusty patch bumble bee. There were many varieties here because this appears to be a tall grass prairie zone. There are confirmed Blandings to the South at Laurel Creek Conservation Area, confirmed Jeffersons salamanders, Ribbon snakes, Acadian Flycatchers, Canada Warblers and many other species in the nearby ESPA 17 and 19 to the West. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">There is an EA underway right now because they want to develop subdivisions along Conservation Drive, the road that is the access road to this pond. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Below is the email I provided to enforcement officials and our local government. In the attachments is a sample of the data I gathered regarding how this is par for the course in our area. I've seen many ponds destroyed like this. I am told that ministry officials are not AUTHORIZED to view Youtube videos and some are limited in terms of bandwidth on the data they can receive. This makes it challenging to deliver video evidence to them. Never the less, I will bring a copy of this information either on CD or Data Key to City of Waterloo and Region of Waterloo officials as well as the Guelph MNR and RCMP if need be. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">I took videos of my observations today and they are posted on youtube here and were all filmed between 9 30 and 10:30 am on Monday July 13, 2015. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_5630" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V8qpuxSudM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V8qpuxSudM</a> aka Creekside Video 1: Features the view going into the location. Brief summery of the events. <br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_5600" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHuhuCfdjk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHuhuCfdjk</a> aka Creekside Video 2: There are fish in the ponds. I could not get a closer look because the peat is like quicksand but i was filming them as they jumped. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" class="yiv9847632416" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_8680" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3mU3W2fok" style="color:rgb(25, 106, 212);background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3mU3W2fok</a> aka Creekside Video 3. I witnessed a little martin in the area of the drained pond. Fish jumping in the area of where the main pond was. I voice concern over the vulnerability of the remaining creatures to predation. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">My people have lived by swamps in bogs from Louisanna to St. Simon New Brunswick for generations so I'm no stranger to walking barefoot in mud and grasses. Marshlands are where my family got our cranberries, wild rice and cloud berries, medicines and ice to keep our food cold. It is where we hunted geese and Moose even to this day. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Venturing into a drained wetland though is unnatural. Spiritually it's like walking into a place of the dead and it is dangerous. Whoever did this put their workers at risk. They have altered the hydrogeologic regime of this area. If the clay aquitard they removed results in the saturation of newly exposed peat, underground, this parking lot could see a massive sink hole or some other geological risk to the nearby building in the days ahead. Watermains could sink and break. Who knows the many risks they have created by way of this short sighted act. <br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">These are likely Treaty Lands. Part of the Haldimand Tract Agreement. I don't know for sure but what I do know is that it is fundamentally wrong to destroy fish habitats and endangered species habitats not only according to provincial laws but to Treaty laws as well. This is a crime scene. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Endangered Species Laws are not working in Ontario. Laws to protect Fish are not working. Destruction prior to completion of EA's are still happening and reasonable enforcement is lacking. It should not take a housewife like me to flag this issue when this was CLEARLY reported to officials as noted in the Waterloo Chronicle's coverage. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;">Aqufers are being used to drain wetland habitats of endangered species. I have seen the same thing happen time and time again. I took these issues to the Ontario Municipal Board for the West Side Lands, OMB case PL071044. I won that case and got Stantec to sign off that their EA was both incomplete and insufficient. The City and Region approved of this flawed EA and those subdivisions but I proved via the experts meeting that the Ministries,Municipalities, Conservation Authorities were not reasonably protecting known fish habitats or known habitats for endangered species. They clearly have not learned since but I want them to step up and do the right thing with this. close that trench and cap that exposed recharge zone. The pond itself is a natural recharge. Don't disturb it. If it poses a risk to the road, move the road not the pond. They should not have built in a swamp to begin with. </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074" style="font-size:16px;"><br></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074"><font id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_13971" size="3">Thank you/ Mii'gwetch /<span class="yiv9847632416" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_13891" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Geneva;">Wela'lin </span> </font></div><div class="yiv9847632416qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1436806258873_4594"><br></div><div class="yiv9847632416yqt2775568861" id="yiv9847632416yqtfd57309"><div class="yiv9847632416yqt6998106197" id="yiv9847632416yqtfd56119" style="font-size:16px;"><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074">Louisette Lanteigne</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074">700 Star Flower Ave.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074">Waterloo Ont.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074">N2V 2L2 </div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074"><br clear="none"></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv9847632416yui_3_16_0_1_1436798908086_4074"><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>