LETTER: All levels of government need to fund phosphorous recycling facility

Art Janse Pumping Station, proposed site of the Holland Marsh Phosphorus Recycling Facility, September 2021.

From BarrieToday, January 3, 2022
A Letter to the Editor

I am a resident of Rushton Road in the Willow Beach hamlet in the Town of Georgina. I am a senior environmental health and safety scientist and have worked in the field for over 30 years.

This proposal to build this phosphorus recycling plant has been tabled over and over through many levels of governments and now it has been tied up literally with the Upper York Sewage System proposal, which is weighing it down. How can we the educated public, see over and over again these terrible decisions and actions to halt this plant when scientifically there is such a need for it?

Lake Simcoe watershed is taking such a beating despite this so-called Protection Plan. There is a problem. Too much phosphorus and the solution to resolve it is to remove some of the tonnes (2.5 to approximately 10 tonnes) of phosphorus. The intensification discussed, unfortunately, was stated at 50 to 55 percent in the Lake Simcoe watershed, but this percentage should have been much much higher.

But instead, urban sprawl into white and greenbelts will damage the watershed even more and add to the phosphorus, salt, and other pollutants, suffocating the tributaries and wetlands and Lake Simcoe watershed; hence, more pollution. Remember pollution causes human health problems. See Canadian Association of Physicians of the Environment, CAPE.

Also, important and valuable farmland will be destroyed once urban sprawl gets its teeth into the ecologically sensitive lands. These should be protected, but Ford’s MZOs override everything. More population means we will need more food, not more pavement and runoff, especially during this climate crisis we are experiencing.

Someone with authority in the government needs to be making better decisions faster. The feds gave $16 million, where are the others with their dollars to fund this project? It’s not rocket science.

MJ Hanley
Georgina

Read the article here