Fort Erie shut out of $89,000 Niagara tree planting project

Niagara Region will spend none of its $89,000 provincial tree planting grant in Fort Erie, the Region told Fort Erie Radio, and will plant the trees exclusively at properties in Thorold, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

The Region and the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority will hold five volunteer planting events in those three locations, but Fort Erie residents won’t be able to join any of them this fall, because the Region has already filled all the volunteer spots.

The Region announced the project, Growing Niagara’s Canopy, on September 15, paid for through the Ontario Community Environment Fund. The province collects that money as penalties from industrial polluters and spends it on restoration work in the region where the violation happened.

Senior project manager Susan McPetrie said both organizations judged each property on its available planting space and on how much the land would gain ecologically.

“The locations selected represent the sites that best aligned with the scope, timing and funding requirements of this project,” said McPetrie.

McPetrie did not say which Fort Erie properties the Region looked at, or whether it looked at any.

Instead, Fort Erie residents are invited to plant trees this fall at the TD Tree Days event the conservation authority is holding at Ott Road Park in Stevensville on October 24 from 9 a.m. to noon.

The Region expects to open more volunteer spots at its planting events in spring and fall 2027, McPetrie said, though it has not released dates or locations.

Volunteers planted about 500 trees on Thunder Bay Road this Earth Day, and the conservation authority’s Trees for All bareroot program supplied another 2,100 seedlings for two other Fort Erie properties.

The Region and the conservation authority planted nearly 4,000 native trees at the closed regional landfill on Winger Road in 2023.

McPetrie said Fort Erie still offers room for planting along creeks and rivers, and on open ground the Region could return to a natural state.

The Region will keep working with the conservation authority and local municipalities to find those sites, McPetrie said, and will judge future projects on who owns the land, what the planting would achieve and how much money is available.

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