The politics of the Oak Ridges Moraine in southern Ontario, Canada, have centred on the question of how to preserve this extensive natural resource that is increasingly threatened by human modification.
Although preservation of the moraine was first suggested in the 1940s, and intermittently over the subsequent fifty years, it was not until 1991 that the issue achieved prominence in political discourse.
Monitoring of the Moraine project by citizens and environmental organizations, along with credible ecological information are essential to its continued preservation.
Environmental groups began a media campaign to raise public awareness of the moraine, referring to it as the "rain barrel of Ontario".
It became the basis for the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, dividing the area into four zones of increasingly stringent controls on development.
Once elected, the party failed to deliver on that promise, as a development in the northern part of Richmond Hill consisting of over 6600 housing units continued.
The exchange settled outstanding disputes being considered by the OMB involving moraine lands in Richmond Hill and Uxbridge.
Lands acquired by the developers had been previously identified as high-growth urban areas in regional and local Official Plans, often referred to as Seaton.
The system trunks, consisting of 2.7 metre concrete pipes, will collectively transport 740 million litres of raw sewage daily from York and Durham to treatment facilities in Pickering.
Intended to cover major growth areas in the eastern part of the region, it will connect directly to emerging developments from Markham to Holland Landing.
Also, according to The Globe and Mail, "York Region has acknowledged that the first phase of building the 16th Avenue sewer line, finished in 2003, had a negative impact on local watersheds."
In late October 2005, Toronto City Council voted 34–3 to join an environmental coalition attempting to block the construction of the extension.
[11] The action to save the moraine yields insights into the state of sustainable land use planning and smart growth in watershed protection.
In its 2002 case study, the International Association for Great Lakes Research noted that it was “only through citizen initiatives, shaped and focused by environmental groups, that serious debate, and eventual formation of a land use plan, took place.
"[1] As the struggle to save the moraine shows, significant political pressure is necessary to overcome the obstacles to controls: municipalities dedicated to encouraging growth and higher level governments reluctant to intervene.