• Protecting Water and Farmland in Simcoe County

Globe and Mail features ‘magical’ water

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In AWARE News Network
Jan 26th, 2019
3 Comments
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Can water be a magical ingredient?

AWARE News Network

Today’s Globe and Mail has an article by Jon Sufrin about water, on page 7 of the Pursuits section. He looks at how the properties of good water, like that flowing from artesian wells in Springwater (and Tiny, Oro-Medonte and Tay) can improve our food, drink and well-being.

He leads with an interview with William Shotyk, of the University of Alberta. Shotyk tells him: “This water is a miracle of science. You will not find better water  on the planet.”

As Shotyk has been saying for two decades, and as we know – we local residents and the thousands who drive every year to get their water from the ‘flow’ on County Road 27 north of Elmvale – our water is the best.

Violet and Leslie Mokri from Waubashene are interviewed at the flow, and Chris Etzinger, owner of the Elmvale Bakery, tells the Globe the water makes noticeably better bread.

Sufrin examines a host of products, some that are actually made with this water, from the aquifer recharged by the Simcoe Uplands Moraine, and others where manufacturers go the extra mile to find sources of good water.

He touches on the woes of residents like Tiny’s Bonnie Pigeon, who suspects the activity of the nearby quarry is responsible for the siltation of her well, “leading her, other locals and Shotyk to believe that the pristine water is under threat.

‘This water is an intelligence test for our society,’ Shotyk says. ‘If we’re intelligent, we’ll be drinking this water for generations to come.'”

 

 

 

3 Responses to “Globe and Mail features ‘magical’ water”

  1. Bill French says:

    Great article in Globe and Mail. The reality is that we do need to seriously consider the often talked about Blue Belt similar to the Greenbelt to protect source water resources. Except for established agricultural uses, any residential, commercial, industrial or deep aggregate extraction operations should be prohibited over fresh water aquifers. That would greatly impact development in much of Simcoe County but at some point Water, the source of life, must be given priority over unneeded private land hoarding development interests. Contrary to some of the dribble you hear from uninformed local politicians, the Source Water Protection Act does not adequately protect fresh water, as it only focuses on Municipal Services and most residents in Simcoe County, outside the urban centres, are on private wells unregulated by the SWPA.

    • Tom Kinnear says:

      Great Article in the Globe. Great letter from Bill French!
      Tom Kinnear

    • Donna Deneault says:

      Bill, this is excellent. We should all write to the Premier and ask him and his ON Government to “do the intelligent thing”. This water (this area of Simcoe Uplands) is most definitely “environmentally sensitive”. Why don’t our politicians listen to the world-renowned scientists? They are the people who are skilled in making water protection decisions. I wonder how many of the employees in the Ministry of Env./Conservation and Parks are hydro geologists? How many of them have read the writings of Dr. Shotyk and Dr. Cherry? Why can they not see what we see? This incredible, magical place in Simcoe Uplands, where Nature is turning rain water and surface water into water you can drink straight from the ground, because of an almost magical process where it is filtered through the special soil. The recharge zone for the Alliston Aquifer is here and as Dr. Shotyk says, if we do the intelligent thing, we’ll be drinking it for generations to come.

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