It should never have come to this.

County residents shouldn’t have to raise $100,000 of private money to ask a court whether a company must follow a law that is already on the books. Our municipal and provincial governments should have dealt with this years ago. They didn’t—and after a decade of blasting, complaints, investigations, meetings and legal proceedings, no level of government is coming to protect this community for us.

We have to protect it ourselves.

On October 6, the Ontario Superior Court will hear our application concerning the extraction and sale of limestone at Picton Terminals. This is our last practical chance to have the charge of an illegal quarry decided by a judge before the damage—and the precedent it creates—becomes permanent.

We have raised nearly $75,000. We need another $25,000 now to finish preparing and arguing the case properly.

Before I explain where the money will go, I want to say something to everyone who has written a letter, attended a meeting, signed a petition, challenged an elected official, gathered evidence, shared information, or donated.

None of it was wasted. You helped get us here.

In 2018, Save Picton Bay went to court and established that the only legal non-conforming use on the Sophiasburgh side of the property was vehicle storage. Quarrying wasn’t permitted.

For all practical purposes, the community won an important point. But the judgment wasn’t enforced after Save Picton Bay was dissolved as part of the settlement. 

A lack of financial capacity—not a lack of merit—helped open the door to another eight years of excavation. It is difficult not to think about what could have been prevented if the community had possessed the resources to continue.

In 2025, a small group of residents brought a private prosecution against ABNA Investments, owner of Picton Terminals, under the Aggregate Resources Act. A Justice of the Peace found there was enough evidence for the charge to proceed. The case brought province-wide attention to ongoing quarrying and put both the operator and the Province on notice.

The Crown later withdrew the charge—not because a judge heard the evidence and rejected it, but because repeated permissions from the Ministry of Natural Resources over those eight years could give the operator a defence of “officially induced error.”

Put plainly, the Ministry failed to enforce the law, and its own repeated permissions became the reason a prosecution couldn’t continue.

There is something deeply wrong with that.

Meanwhile, the County, worried about legal fees, moved to settle its own case against the Terminals for ignoring local bylaws by asking the province for a Minister’s Zoning Order in lieu of going to court. That MZO, which is still pending, would expand industrial permissions across six additional White Chapel Road properties since acquired by the Terminals. The site is now 62 hectares.

The Ministry failed to act. The County threw up its hands. The prosecution was withdrawn. Every public route that should have protected this community failed us.

That is why we filed the civil application now before the Superior Court. It names ABNA Investments, the owner of Picton Terminals, and the Ministry of Natural Resources as respondents. It asks the court to declare whether the property has been used as a pit or quarry under the Aggregate Resources Act.

This time, the case belongs to us. The Crown cannot step in and withdraw it.

And this is about far more than one property.

Prince Edward County is built on limestone. It sits on some of the most accessible, high-grade limestone in southern Ontario, much of it close to water. If a landowner can excavate and sell enormous quantities of limestone without a quarry licence simply by calling it “surplus” to a development project, the implications for this County are staggering.

The blueprint would be obvious: acquire waterfront land, propose a development, blast and remove the limestone, and sell it, all while avoiding the rules that licensed quarries are required to follow.

No quarry licence. No quarry site plan. No aggregate levy. No enforceable rehabilitation and remediation plan. None of the normal safeguards intended to protect water, neighbouring properties and the surrounding environment.

If that interpretation is allowed to stand, Picton Terminals won’t be the end of this issue. It will be the doorway.

This County’s limestone, farmland, shoreline and access to water make it uniquely vulnerable. A shoreline that has been blasted away cannot be restored. An escarpment doesn’t grow back. What happens in this case will affect what operators and regulators believe they can get away with here for decades to come.

The court application documents the removal of more than one million tonnes of limestone from the escarpment above Picton Bay. It alleges minimum aggregate sales of approximately $62 million over the past decade—all without a quarry licence.

A case this important cannot be handled halfway. A strong factual case must be assembled, tested, written and argued by people with the experience to do it properly.

That is why we retained Goodmans LLP. Nationally recognized for litigation and municipal land-use practices, its zoning and land-use group regularly represents developers, governments, municipalities and advocacy groups in complex planning and regulatory disputes.

Our lead lawyer, Rodney Gill, is a partner in Goodmans’ Municipal and Land Development Group. He is recognized by Best Lawyers in Canada for both Municipal Law and Expropriation Law.

These are lawyers who understand how governments, developers, planning legislation and the courts intersect—and they know how these cases are fought.

Goodmans has reviewed the evidence, engaged with Ministry counsel, and explored other enforcement routes before recommending a civil application. They have not promised us an outcome, and we wouldn’t trust anyone who did. They have told us this is a serious case that deserves to be heard.

The projected legal cost through the October 6 hearing is approximately $98,000 to $125,000, depending on how aggressively every step is contested. 

To Donate:  https://smallchangefund.ca/campaign/stop-illegal-mining-and-quarries-in-prince-edward-county/
Every donation made through the Small Change Fund receives an official charitable receipt.