Development Looming For Once-Protected Land – Niska Bridge River Valley
Developer looting of environmental and built heritage is a long game across the world. Yet attentive citizens in Guelph often save the city’s most valuable life capital and assets.
This time informed delegations to city council have called for protection of the long-delayed parkland designation for the beautiful Niska- bridge river valley area (“Council urged to protect west-end natural area,” Mercury-Tribune, June 16). Just past the west end YM-YWCA, this unspoiled 116 acres of mature forest wetlands on either side of the Speed River and feeding brooks is a paragon of Guelph’s river-land ecology and inheritance of centuries of landscape enjoyment and use.
The article by Doug Hallett reports that “in 1977 the city directed the Grand River Conservation Authority to buy [with City of Guelph money] the Kortright Waterfowl Park land and place it within a larger Hanlon Creek Conservation Area.” …
