Dear Editor,
In last week’s Letters, Save Georgian Bay called on TC Energy to release the studies from our ongoing geotechnical program. The reality is that our geotechnical program is still being conducted.
The federal Impact Assessment process is the primary forum for reviewing and evaluating project information. Studies and supporting documents will be developed and submitted through that process and made publicly available on the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada registry. This ensures regulators, Indigenous communities, stakeholders, and the public are all working from the same information at the same time. It also ensures that information is presented with the appropriate context, supporting analysis, and regulatory review, rather than as standalone or incomplete data.
The offshore work taking place this summer is part of ongoing geotechnical investigations—an essential step in understanding lakebed conditions, including soil and bedrock characteristics. This information is required to support engineering design, environmental assessment, and safe project development. Like many large infrastructure projects, this work is being completed over multiple field seasons to build a comprehensive understanding of site conditions.
The rock samples that are collected will undergo laboratory testing and geotechnical analysis. Once that work is complete, the results will be incorporated into the Project’s engineering design and used to inform the federal Impact Assessment process.
We welcome conversations with anyone in the community who has questions about the Project or the studies that are underway. Our team hosts regular coffee chats every Thursday at our office in Meaford, and our doors are always open. We encourage residents to stop by, ask questions, share their perspectives, and learn more about the Project directly from our team.
Sincerely,
Clark Little, on behalf of the Ontario Pumped Storage Team
