The Oak Ridges Moraine

The Oak Ridges Moraine is a ridge of sand and gravel deposits stretching roughly 160 kilometres across south-central Ontario, running through the northern edge of the Greater Toronto Area from the Niagara Escarpment to the Trent River. It was formed roughly 12,000 years ago as retreating glaciers deposited sediment between two ice sheets at the end of the last ice age, leaving behind a porous, permeable landscape that acts as a natural sponge, absorbing rainfall and snowmelt and slowly recharging the groundwater and headwaters that feed dozens of rivers and streams across the region, including several that flow into Toronto.

Protecting it from sprawl

As the Greater Toronto Area's suburbs pushed steadily north through the late 20th century, developers increasingly targeted moraine land for new subdivisions, prompting a sustained environmental campaign warning that paving over the moraine would compromise the region's water supply. That pressure led the Ontario government to pass the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act in 2001, restricting development across much of the moraine and making it one of the more significant pieces of provincial land-use legislation tied directly to protecting Toronto-area drinking water.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Oak Ridges Moraine
• Wikipedia — Oak Ridges Moraine

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