Sun Gro Horticulture Canada Ltd. is proposing to develop the Hay Point Bog to mine peat for the production horticultural peat products. The bog is located in Hecla/Grindstone Provincial Park and covers an area of approximately 531 ha.  Before granting this proposal an environmental license, Manitoba Conservation is soliciting public input with a deadline of February 3, 2012.

What follows is the text of Nature Manitoba’s submission to Manitoba Conservation. This project is an environmental catastrophe in the making and every effort must be made to stop it. Please take some time to make your own views known to the government using, if you wish, some of the arguments presented in our brief. The contact person at Manitoba Conservation is Darrell Ouimet at Darrell.ouimet@gov.mb.ca, (945-7067)

"A park is a park is a park"
Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, Nov 2008

Environmental Assessment and Licensing Branch (Att: Darrell Ouimet)

Hay Point Peat Mine Development     #5548.00

There are two major considerations to weigh when assessing the proposal of Sun Gro to mine peat in Hecla/Grindstone Provincial Park. The first is whether peat mining should be permitted at all in Manitoba, much less encouraged, and the second is whether this kind of activity has any place in a provincial park.

We would submit that peat mining has no place in an economy that seeks sustainability with a minimum production of greenhouse gases. Peat mining is one of the worst imaginable economic activities for the production of such gases. Peat is one of the most important carbon stores on the planet. In Manitoba, our peatlands represent a 10,000-year accumulation of carbon. Mining a peat bog will, over the course of a few decades, release all this carbon back into the atmosphere...