FROM OCTOBER 2021 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX

Fewer than 50 years ago, one of Toronto’s most beloved natural spaces was little more than a wasteland of rebar and smashed bricks. The soil, such as it was, was so poor that grasses couldn’t take root, let alone shrubs or trees. The half-executed plans to turn the spit of land at the foot of Leslie Street in the city’s east end into a massive outer harbour to boost Toronto’s shipping capabilities had failed, as would plans to transform the land into a tarmac. Yet, beginning with a master plan project in the mid-1980s, Tommy Thompson Park (also known as the Leslie Spit) has evolved over the decades into one of the continent’s most significant birding areas – more than 300 species use it as a migratory stopping point – and the worst kept-secret of Toronto’s outdoor enthusiasts.

Today, a comparable project to construct a series of islands at the mouth of the Humber River is underway, driven by the promise of eight million cubic metres of soil to build with that will be unearthed by the construction of the Ontario Line subway, running from the Ex to the Science Centre. The community group spearheading the effort, the West End Beaches Stakeholders Association, is set to make its case before city council this fall.

“That soil has to be displaced someplace. Well, what are your options?” asked Walter Kehm, senior principal at LANDinc and a lead designer of both the Leslie Spit and the Humber Bay Islands project. “You can find a farm field and bury it out in Pickering, but you’d be wrong not to make productive habitat and recreation islands in Lake Ontario with that material.”

Beyond the benefits of a recreational shoreline, the project comes with a slate of other goals, including natural habitat restoration, the reconstruction of an aging and structurally compromised breakwater, and helping meet the city’s 40 per cent tree canopy goal.

But would a reimagined version of the Leslie Spit be possible in Mimico? We asked Kehm and a few other experts to find out.

WALTER KEHM,

landscape architect and author of Accidental Wilderness: The Leslie Street Spit

“The growth of the Parkdale, Mimico and Bathurst neighbourhoods is 300,000 to 400,000 people over the past few decades, but hardly any new park space has been added. And we have the Christie bakery site under planning – 16 towers are being proposed there with just two acres of open space for 15,000 people. We need more park space. Look, the Martin Goodman Trail is a joke, the Humber Trail is a joke on weekends. It’s too busy.

Meanwhile, the existing breakwater in Humber Bay was built in 1912 and it’s crumbling, it’s falling apart. The migration of sand is moving now behind the breakwater – there’s no longer free passage to the Humber River, and the beaches are soaking up pollution from the Humber watershed. So we’re taking a bottom-up approach: Get the ratepayers on board, get community support.

I think one of the first points to consider for Humber Bay Islands would be accessibility. We have this groundswell of people saying, ‘We’ve had enough of big, heavy stuff on the waterfront. We want access to the water. Let us just be in nature.’”

WAYNE REEVES,

historical geographer, former chief curator of Museums and Heritage Services, City of Toronto

“Toronto has a history of filling in the lake, dating back to the 1850s. But in terms of singular landforms, there’s nothing quite like the Spit. And the fact that it led to one of the most important places for birds on the planet – quite frankly it’s incredible to see nature that has arisen out of what was, basically, a huge dump.

The Humber Bay Islands proposal is a concept that goes back to the early 2000s and was seen as a way of creating a deflector arm. It would be a spit running about a kilometre into the lake on the east side of the Humber River’s mouth to deflect all the pollution that comes down the Humber watershed and then gets in behind the existing concrete breakwater. It creates highly polluted conditions for the swimming beaches at Sunnyside.

There are high needs around lakefront water quality in Etobicoke that are driving the creation of the Humber Bay Islands concept. But these are long-term projects. Think of how long filling has been going on at the Leslie Spit – I was born in 1959, and that was the year the first truckloads were starting to be dumped at the foot of Leslie Street, and it’s still going on. It’s hard to imagine that the people of Mimico would want to put up with that type of constant truck traffic for such a long time to achieve this project.”

RALPH TONINGER,

associate director, Restoration and Resource Management, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA)

“It would be a massive consultation process, but I think the design and planning process for the Spit could definitely be replicated quite easily. Yet through good planning and consultation there has to be a balance between community needs and restoration needs. Because if the public doesn’t support the management objectives you’re going to be fighting the public for years.

One of the things that TRCA has learned is that lake filling becomes a great opportunity to replace lost habitat on the shorelines. Dating back to the early 1800s, we have hardened all of our shorelines, removed the natural features and destroyed much of the fish habitat. Lake filling becomes a great opportunity to put form and function back into shorelines and help improve the mouths of our rivers, because many of them now just spit out into the open lake and don’t provide river mouth habitat for aquatic species, as well as habitat for terrestrial birds and wildlife.”

ANDRÉS JIMÉNEZ MONGE,

Urban Program Coordinator, Birds Canada

“We have found 323 bird species at Tommy Thompson Park, the majority of which use these habitats during migration throughout the year. It’s an environmentally significant area, but it also has an Important Bird Area designation globally. If we build new habitat in Mimico into the lake, birds and other species will find it and use it to rest and breed and build up their fat reserves before flying tremendous distances south to South America or north to the Arctic.

However, while adding new habitat is crucial, we have many spaces that need restoration right now. The quarry in Scarborough at Gerrard Street East and Victoria Park Avenue is a great example of a place in which you can find at-risk species like the Smooth Greensnake and Nighthawks. Right now that space is being transformed into condos. And the same thing could be said about Ontario Place.

Yes, we want to have new habitats. But I struggle to find a coherent argument for us to start building something as big as the Humber Bay Islands project to have results in 60 years when we could restore habitat and land that we have right now that is empty. We need to build more opportunities that allow people to experience birds and snakes and foxes as part of the nature around them. When people do, their concept of balancing their needs and nature’s needs changes a lot.”

Spit decisions

While not everyone agreed that the money required to build another spit in Mimico would be the best way to boost natural habitat and greenspaces in Toronto, there was consensus on how to use the manufactured land to get the most out of it for people and non-human species alike if the project is greenlit.

1. Let it go wild: A big part of what makes the Leslie Spit unique is its wildness. Rather than cut grass and splash pads, a future Mimico Spit should let nature play a deciding role in what grows where and, therefore, which species will call it home.

2. Keep the cars out: Forcing people out of their cars to explore the park on foot or by bike has made it mandatory for Spit visitors to slow down and take in sights, sounds, and smells they might otherwise miss. Consensus was that the Spit should remain car-free.

3. Go with the flow: Constructing new landforms at the mouth of the Humber River could significantly shift how sediment and water move about with potentially harmful impacts on both shoreline and aquatic species’ health. Designs for a Mimico Spit must account for how water flows to ensure the greenspace is a boon for local biodiversity. — A.R.