‘Bad things happen when good people are silent’
Standing room only at AWARE’s mega-quarry meeting
By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe June 26 2011
A crowd of more than 160 people crammed into a church hall in Alliston yesterday to hear the many reasons why people across Ontario should be concerned about the proposed Highland Companies mega-quarry in Melancthon Township.
AWARE Simcoe members voted to call on Ontario Environment Minister John Wilkinson to order an environmental assessment of the project. (see below for full text of the resolution.)
Farmers David Vander Zaag and Norm Wolfson described key aspects of the huge project – 2,400 acres (an area the size of Orangeville), 240 feet deep (a greater drop than Niagara Falls), the management of 600 million litres of water a day in perpetuity (removal to allow extraction and then return to the watercourses at a different temperature and with surface contaminants), 300 trucks an hour.
They talked of their fear that provincial decision-makers, with no understanding of farming, have no clue about the unique growing quality of the soil in the area which supplies potatoes to 50 per cent of the GTA population.
Melancthon Deputy Mayor Darren White stressed that there is no shortage of locations in Ontario where aggregate can be extracted. Why this spot? Perhaps because the township population is only 2,000. Mayor Bill Reid added that Dufferin is one of only two counties in Ontario where no planning authority has been uploaded to the upper tier, so the township is on its own in fighting the project, hopeful of the support of its neighbours.
Radio host Dale Goldhawk, who has a history of advocacy for rural communities (Dump Site 41, Shakespeare highway, wind turbine problems), had a blunt response for one member of the audience who said provincial and municipal laws should protect against any adverse effect from this type of project.
“Laws sit there on the books to protect us, but they don’t,” Goldhawk told the standing-room only crowd. “It’s going to take all of us.” He urged everyone to call Premier Dalton McGuinty and gave out the phone number – 416-325-1941.
“Bad things happen when good people are silent,” added Stephen Ogden, whose 25-year-battle against Dump Site 41 in North Simcoe ended in the project’s cancellation two years ago..“Laws only protect us when we enforce them.”
Councillor Jeff Monague of Beausoleil First Nation noted that when he served as Chief in the 1990s, his community took a stand against Dump Site 41 and tried to register its opposition. But it was not until the “11th hour” in 2009 that effective action was taken. “We did it as human beings.”
Monague warned that human activities such as redirecting rivers are causing damage beyond what Mother Earth can repair. “We’re taking the life force and we’re changing it, we’re moving, it. That’s not what we’re supposed to do as human beings. We’re supposed to take care of it.”
Gary Christie and Chris Adamson of the Nottawasaga Steelheaders spoke of the ecological impact the project will have on wildlife.
Their group has worked with the MNR since 1993 to restore species, especially the fish that depend on the cold waters of the Nottawasaga – rainbow trout, sturgeon and Chinook salmon. The key role played by this river was revealed in a recent investigation of Great Lakes Chinook salmon: it revealed a high proportion of wild, rather than introduced, origin – 75 per cent in Lake Huron, of which half had spawned in the Nottawasaga.
Two resolutions were passed at the meeting.
Note: members of the public have until July 11 to comment through the Environmental Registry.
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