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CEA in the News |
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For environmentalists, Ojibway Shores 'needed to be saved' TAYLOR CAMPBELL, WINDSOR STAR Environmental groups aren’t yet ready to celebrate the protection of the city’s last remaining stretch of natural shoreline. “We’re waiting to see additional details, but it looks like this is as close as we’ve been to protecting Ojibway Shores since the port authority got its hands on it,” said Derek Coronado, coordinator of the Citizens Environment Alliance, which has been working to protect the land from urban development for over 20 years. The City of Windsor is poised to take ownership of Ojibway Shores, a coveted ecological setting along the Detroit River, by expropriating nine acres (3.6 hectares) of private waterfront land in Olde Sandwich and swapping part of it with the Windsor Port Authority. According to the city’s Aug. 2 announcement, the switch will mean the Ojibway Shores’ 33-acre (13-hectare) expanse will be permanently protected in its natural state, but the switch has yet to be officially arranged, and the current owner of the land on the northwest corner of Mill and Russell streets has vowed to fight expropriation. “I think there’s a potential for everybody to walk away winners,” said Coronado, who added he sees the land swap solution as ironic — the port authority originally obtained the land in a land swap arrangement. He hopes folks in Olde Sandwich end up with a nice park space with water access on that portion of the land being targeted for expropriation that the city plans to retain. A privately owned lot, its current appearance is more like parkland than a vacant lot. “I grew up on the west side and used to play on the property in Sandwich being swapped,” said Tom Henderson, chair of the public advisory council for the Detroit River Canadian Cleanup, which has been trying to protect Ojibway Shores for 15 years. Henderson describes the land swap as “the greatest good for the greatest number,” since Ojibway Shores was a property “that needed to be saved.” But he also hopes that the portion of expropriated land in Olde Sandwich that the city intends on retaining can become public parkland for Sandwich. Henderson said his group has no other project that is as significant as the push to save Ojibway Shores. “As we lose more and more green space in the world, it’s important to protect what we have.” An estimated more than 1,000 species of plants and animals call Ojibway Shores home, 28 of them federally and provincially protected. “It’s a beautiful piece of property that needed to be saved,” Henderson added. © Copyright (c) The Windsor Star |