GBA Update Fall 2024

Boating, Safety & Emergencies (BS&E)

Your ever-vigilant BS&E committee continues to provide topical and timely advice, guidance, and information. At this time of year, we are thinking a lot about safety on the ice, particularly snowmobiling , but there is ongoing work, including: ≥ Working with Safe Quiet Lakes on: • Policing unreasonable boat noise (Decibel Coalition) • Controlling excessive and dangerous wakes (Wake Safety) ≥ Helping municipalities to more easily enact boat speed restrictions to improve safety ≥ Keeping you apprised of upcoming boating and safety legislation and consultations

Read more: ≥ Floating cottages: bit.ly/Floathomes

Hazardous Waste A proposal by MECP to relax regulations on hazardous waste transportation and other matters because they have been unable or unwilling to enforce the current ones, opened our eyes to the lax enforcement approach evidenced by numerous reports from the Environment Commissioner of Ontario over many years. So we joined others to ask for a more rigorous approach to rules and their enforcement to protect Ontarians from potential hazardous waste and other issues. Aquaculture The Aquaculture Committee participated in two conferences led by Professor Neil Rooney of the University of Guelph, an experienced researcher on open net aquaculture issues, to determine aquaculture research priorities for Ontario and see if we could work together with the University of Guelph to address GBA’s research priorities. This was successful, and it looks as if we can cover our primary research concerns – more to come on this. Finally (particularly for our US and international members), please remember that the filing deadline for the Underused Housing Tax (UHT) has been extended again to April 30, 2024. None of these achievements would be possible without the incredible hard work and dedication of our GBA directors and the growing number of amazing volunteers.

≥ Battery storage: bit.ly/oneidaenergy-storage

≥ TC Energy project:

bit.ly/TCE-PumpedStorage

≥ Dock foam:

bit.ly/dockfoam

≥ Washing machine filters: georgianbay.ca/microplastics-in-georgian-bay

≥ Snowmobiling safety:

bit.ly/GBAsnowmobiling

≥ Boat speeds:

bit.ly/GBA-VORRs

≥ Boating and safety changes: bit.ly/TCconsults

≥ Hazardous waste:

bit.ly/GBA-EASRchanges

≥ UHT:

bit.ly/UHT-deadline

www.georgianbay.ca

GBA UPDATE Spring 2024

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