In allowing an appeal by Rein Minnema of Glencoe, Ontario against a report of a Drainage Engineer for the Municipality of Southwest Middlesex, the Agricultural, Food and Rural Affairs Tribunal criticized the municipality for its actions leading to the creation of the report. The report concerned the Miller Drainage Works 1969 and Minnema asked that it be amended to provided for enclosing the open channel of the drain on his property. The enclosure was actually part of the original report of the Drainage Engineer in 2006, but the Municipality ignored that report and instructed the Engineer to go in a different direction. In the view of the Appeal Tribunal, this instruction exceeded the jurisdiction of the Municipality:
The Tribunal is disturbed by the actions of the Municipality in performing its duties under the Act, beginning with Council's consideration of the Engineer's preliminary report at their meeting of March 15, 2006. The Engineer's preliminary report provided three options for the enclosure of the drain in response to the original request by Mr. Minnema to have the drain enclosed. However, after hearing complaints from upstream landowners, Council chose to ignore the Engineer's recommendations contained in his preliminary report and restated in his letter attached to the municipal staff report. Instead, they opted to proceed in a completely different direction by instructing the Engineer to prepare a report based on installing an access culvert and erosion protection. It was this Council action that appears to have initiated a nearly 5 year litany of events which led to the preparation and consideration of three versions of final reports, with the recommendations in each successive report becoming progressively further removed from Mr. Minnema's original request for an enclosure and the recommendations of the Engineer in his preliminary report. During the process, Council provided specific instructions to the Engineer to modify his recommendations and design parameters, including changing the report from a drain enclosure to a culvert, deleting erosion protection and the upsizing of the access culvert from a 1 in 2 year to a 1 in 5 year design standard.
The Tribunal finds that Council for the Municipality exceeded their jurisdiction under the Act by exerting undue influence on the Engineer which prejudiced the Engineer's independent judgment.
The Tribunal is also disturbed by the Engineer's passivity in complying with Council instructions to make significant changes to his recommendations and design parameters. In his letter to the Municipality of January 14, 2007, which was attached to the staff report to Council dated February 11, 2010, the Engineer clearly stated that the best solution to address problems, including surface water and erosion, was the installation of a tile drain generally following the existing channel with outlets for surface water. During the hearing, the Engineer testified that he is still of the opinion that the erosion issues at the outlet of the existing tiles need to be addressed, yet this work is not included in the current Report. He also testified that the design standard for an agricultural access culvert is normally a 1 in 2 year storm, yet the culvert in the Report has been upsized to a 1 in 5 year storm. Furthermore, he testified that he still stands by his recommendation to enclose the drain as described in his preliminary report, yet the current Report has no such recommendation. He said that he made the changes to the reports in order to comply with the Council instructions.
The Tribunal finds that the Engineer allowed himself to be unduly influenced by Council and failed to exercise independent judgment in preparing his final reports, including the current Report.
In view of the above, the Tribunal finds that the Engineer's Report under consideration does not represent a "true report" as referenced under Section 11 of the Act.
Read the entire decision at:
Miller Drainage Works 1969.
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