'David versus Goliath'
By KRISTEN SMITH
Posted 2 months ago
The Highland Companies, Walker Aggregates, and M.A.Q. Aggregates have all submitted applications to quarry areas within 30 kilometres each other, although they're all in separate townships.
For each of these separate quarry applications there are community members who have come together to fight against them.Two are essentially kitty-corner from each other, separated by the Osprey-Clearview town line, County Road 91, and Grey Road 12. These are in addition to the Duntroon Quarry, which has been in operation for about 45 years.
The third application is along Highway 124 in Melancthon Township.
While the sizes vary, all three companies are proposing to dig below the water table.
The 2,316-acre proposal, dubbed the Melancthon mega quarry, has garnered widespread attention with the success of October's Foodstock, spearheaded by local chef Michael Stadtländer and the Canadian Chefs' Congress.
According to organizers, about 28,000 attended the pay-what- you-can outdoor festival, which featured the handiwork of about 100 chefs.
Wendy Franks, who owns a farm near two of the proposed quarries (and the existing Duntroon quarry), likens the aggregate company and opposition situation to a "David and Goliath fight."
She says provincial policy is permissive, and "aggregate trumps any other land use."
In terms of finances, Franks says the deck is stacked against the opposing group, who rely on donations.
Walker Aggregates -- northeast corner of County Road 91 and Grey Road 31 Size: 168 acres
Status: awaiting a decision of a joint hearing (Environmental Review Tribunal and Ontario Municipal Board.)
Clearview Community Coalition (CCC) representative Janet Gillham says the Niagara Escarpment as a continuous natural corridor is of huge value to the province."Southern Ontario is highly populated and this type of land is at risk," she said, adding it holds a number of threatened species.
"How can they do that -isn't the Niagara Escarpment protected?" Gillham's says was her main reaction to the new Walker application.
She got involved and learned the answer is if the land is designated as natural heritage or protected area, then yes. If it is designated as an escarpment rural area under the Niagara Escarpment Plan, then it can be re-designated as a mineral resource extraction area.
She says CCC members think of the Niagara Escarpment as a natural resource, which offers more to the area's businesses and residents intact.
"We felt the Niagara Escarpment has to be protected (for the future)," said Gillham. "It's a bit of an aggregate bonanza."
She says opposing the application cost the CCC more than $500,000 "and a lot of time and energy."
Gillham says the CCC is now awaiting the board's decision and trying to make people aware of the value of the escarpment's natural heritage as an anchor for four-season recreation.
A hiking fundraiser is planned for May 12 to help recoup costs and show the community why the group opposes its use as a quarry.
Walker's vice-president of aggregates and construction Ken Lucychyn says his company thought there was a high probability of the application for the new quarry going to a hearing.
He says Walker attempted to involve the community throughout the process, and he sent letters to "immediate neighbours" requesting input and had many "kitchen-table" meetings.
He says changes were made to the application to address residents' concerns, as well as Clearview Township. (Council supported the application.)
He says there is a long-term economic benefit to having high-quality aggregate in the area, and this site is appropriate because it is close to the source and on an existing haul-route.
"There were, in our opinions, no major environmental features that were going to be affected -everything could be managed or mitigated, or enhanced," he said. "We did look at other areas and we found that this had the least amount of affect on some of the significant feature, ecological features in the area."
Walker already has a second quarry licence in the area and Lucychyn says Walker has agreed not to quarry this area if they are granted a licence for the land currently under review.
"We made a commitment we would never run them all together," he said.
He points out aggregate is a necessary, albeit non-renewable, resource.
"We don't go out there and market the product, we just meet a demand," he said, adding only 10% of the resource is available.
He says Walker has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure the natural heritage is protected, including the cumulative effects of three quarries concurrently operating.
For example, the American hart's-tongue fern is in the licence area, but excluded from the extraction area, which Lucychyn says will protect the fern.
"If something happens to the fern, then there's an avenue for recourses that would ensure its protected," he said, adding the fern wouldn't be affected by the quarrying.
Franks says losing this large colony would contribute to the species becoming threatened, and expert testimony suggested the colony wouldn't survive beside a quarry.
"They're not going to exist the way they do today," said Franks
M.A.Q. Aggregates -- west of Grey Road 31 and south of County Road 12 Size: 247-acre site
Status: awaiting Ontario Municipal Board decision
Grey Matters president Harvey Jones says the fear of the area's drinking being affected got him involved.
Jones says many rural residents were worried about their well water.
"The cumulative impact (of three quarries) is difficult to understand and difficult to know," he said. "We could foresee a situation where people were pointing at each other to assign blame instead of actually getting on to fix the situation, if (a problem) ever arose."
He says the rock in this area is fractured vertically and horizontally, which makes water flow unpredictable.
"If you start digging a hole without pumping out water, where does that water go?" he said.
He says experts retained by Grey Matters pointed out features such as a sinkhole.
"The water was pouring down this thing and nobody knew where it went," he said.
He adds Grey Matters is concerned natural features, such as provincially significant wetland on the M.A.Q. site, could dry out.
He says the Rob Roy wetlands are also home to nine species protected by the Ontario Endangered Species Act, and as other quarries are effectively in the same ecosystem, what one quarry does affects the ecosystem on the other side of the municipal boundary.
"It was important to understand the cumulative effects of all these quarries put together," he said.
He says Grey Matters thought the two companies attempt to understand the effects was superficial.
Jones says opposition to the quarry is not a NIMBY response as there were three other community groups in opposition, the Clearview Community Coalition, Grey Association for Better Planning, and the Blue Mountain Watershed Trust Foundation.
He says there is a significant cost to opposing a quarry application (Grey Matters' bill is about $250,000).
M.A.Q. Aggregates was asked for comment and declined.
Walker's Lucychyn say both companies have worked together "on a scientific basis" to ensure potential cumulative impacts on natural heritage features have been addressed and ensure road-safety.
Highland Companies -- Melancthon Township
Size: 1,890 acres of a 2,315-acres site Status: up for Environmental Assessment
Carl Cosak chair of the North Dufferin Agriculture Community Taskforce (NDACT) says "mega-applications bring mega-issues and certainly a variety of them."
The community-based, volunteer organization was born out of a January, 2009 public meeting where about one quarter of Melancthon's population gathered.
Cosak says the group was charged with trying to facilitate communication between the community and Highland Companies.
Highland president John Lowndes bought the first farm in 2006, and bought two of the largest potato farms in the area soon after, with a business plan to become the largest grower and packer of potatoes in Ontario.
"They were welcomed as such," said Cosak, adding people started talking when Highland started putting irrigation wells in places which didn't seem appropriate.
When the company's intention to quarry was confirmed, NDACTS' membership grew.
"From there on, we were into the beginning of a truly remarkable community effort in understanding the risk, and once the risks were understood by the community in leveraging everything we know how to leverage to make sure this will never happen."
Highlands Companies filed its 3,100- page application last March, and during the comment period, which was extended, more than 5,700 letters of concern were submitted.
"As everybody learned, Melancthon is way more special than we thought it was -we knew it had about 15,000 acres of unbelievable soil which grows your rhubarb, and potatoes, Brussels spouts, beans and peas," said Cosak. "We learned more about the water underneath it."
He says the limestone underneath "can best be described as a sponge holding unbelievable amounts of water," and feeds the water in all directions, including the Nottawasaga and Pine River subwatershed to Georgian Bay.
"All of a sudden we realized that the water below Melancthon's beautiful soil was literally looking after millions of Canadians' drinking water," he said.
Cosak says one of the main concerns surrounds Highland's plan to manage 600 million litres of water daily.
"It is a totally insane deal," he said. "If that doesn't send up red flags I don't know what would."
He says the community is also concerned about the effect quarrying will have on surrounding farmland.
"The dust generated is going to end up somewhere," he said.
The application is facing an unprecedented Environmental Assessment, which Cosak says changes the scope of what affects will be studied.
The Highland Companies' spokesperson Lindsay Broadhead says the province needs aggregate.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources' State of Aggregate Resources in Ontario Study, the resources available aren't going to meet the need.
She says Melancthon is one of few places where the appropriate rock doesn't have previously existing infrastructure, isn't environmentally sensitive, and meets the overburden and size criteria dictated by policy.
"The vast majority of this province is prime agricultural land, so if that were the criteria, there'd be really no digging in the province," she said, adding the areas which aren't prime farmland are not the same as where the resource is located.
She says Highland will use a method which involves pumping water out of the quarry and into wells. The wells then flush into the water table, which essentially recirculates the water.
She says this method is new to quarrying.
She says water quality is Highland's top concern.
"This quarry cannot proceed unless it meets or exceeds all standards, because the government won't allow it," she said.
"Highland is also its own neighbour, its own farming operation surrounds the quarry," she said.
Broadhead says Highland's farming operations will keep going during the quarry's lifetime.
She says during time of purchase there was as much transparency as the sellers wanted, meaning they said they were investigating.
"My understanding is, in some cases, people didn't want to know," she said, adding there was a 30% premium offered and Highland purchased the land at $8,000 per acre.
- ksmith@theenterprisebulletin.com
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