Two appeals now underway over proposed Springwater waste facility
By: Jessica Owen Barrie Advance November 7 2019
Progress on the County of Simcoe’s Environmental Resource Recovery Centre project (ERRC) is churning slowly, especially now that a second appeal has been added to the project stack.
A Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) case management conference between all parties involved was held Wednesday at the Township of Springwater Administration Centre in Midhurst.
However, by the end, the tribunal wasn’t any closer to setting hearing dates.
“We are five years now into the site-selection process. The county has spent well over $1 million getting to this point,” said Marshall Green, legal counsel for the County of Simcoe.
There is an existing appeal by two individuals and an environmental advocacy group on the location of the proposed structure.
This will be a great facility, but it does not belong in a forest and should be built on Industrial zoned land where there is the proper infrastructure in place. Our forests need to be preserved, especially now with global warming.
This facility poses a great threat of a major forest fire, without any local full-time fire department available. There have already been several fires that occurred in those types of compost facilities. If that happens at this facility, the whole forest block of the Freele Forest will go up in flames as well as the abutting neighborhood properties at the edge of the forest.
There’s also a great traffic hazard, especially in the winter, by locating the truck entrance at the bottom of a steep hill on a very busy road with poor sight-lines.
The County needs to stop wasting time and money on this site, and put the facility in a proper location.