Your help needed to stop proposed mega-quarry

Back in April of 2011, we asked you to write the provincial government to demand an extension of the comment period on the proposed mega-quarry in Melancthon Township.  More than 1,800 fellow Council of Canadians members did just that, helping to convince the government to push back the deadline under the Environmental Bill of Rights.  Thank you!

The mega-quarry has been proposed in Melancthon Township on Highway 124 just north of Shelburne. The Highland Companies (owned by a Boston hedge fund) has filed an application for a 2,400-acre aggregate mine, which would make it the largest quarry in Ontario and the second largest in North America.  This precious land is the “rooftop of Ontario” running along the border of the Niagara Escarpment.  For many months, the Council of Canadians has been working with local groups to stop this open pit mine because of the extraordinary impacts it will have on neighbouring communities, watersheds, Ontario’s food supply and the drinking water of more than one million people.

FOOD and WATER vs. PROFIT

The Highlands company started buying farmland in Melancthon several years ago, claiming they wanted to become the province’s largest potato growing operation, which made sense to local farmers as the area is well known for its particularly high quality soil and micro-climate.  About one quarter of all the potatoes eaten in the Greater Toronto Area come from there.  After many local farmers had sold their farms – some of which had been in the family for generations – the real motives of the company became apparent.  Under that rich and rare soil is a fortune in high quality limestone worth upwards of eight billion dollars. The company now owns around 8,000 acres of land and has applied for permission to mine 2,400 acres which would make it the second largest quarry in North America. There is little doubt that they intend to excavate the entire 8,000+ acres. To do so, Highland will strip off all that precious soil then blast their way down more than 200 feet BELOW the water table.

From the area around the proposed mine site spring the headwaters of river systems that are important drinking water sources for more than one million people downstream.  The Nottawasaga River, the Grand River and the Pine River systems will all be threatened by the mine’s 600 million litre per day dewatering pumps.  Massive amounts of toxic demolition explosives will be used to smash the limestone and hundreds of dump trucks per hour will enter and leave the site – 24 hours a day, 360 days per year.  The company rightly points out that this is all allowable under Ontario’s aggregate extraction laws but the problem is that those laws couldn’t be more favourable to the industry or more rigged against communities that want to protect their water.

UPDATE: On Friday (May 5, 2012), Stop The Quarry posted this message on Facebook: ‘We have JUST been given notice that the review of the Aggregate Resources Act is to start on Monday and will end on Thursday. Since the revision of this act is imperative to setting a new stage for aggregate extraction in this province it is imperative that we all stand up. Some time in the process has been allocated to public comment so PLEASE request an opportunity to speak before the committee and/or send an email voicing your concern.’ The Council of Canadians' Ontario-Quebec organizer Mark Calzavara will be in Melancthon this Friday night and all day Saturday for strategic planning meetings with the community.

Some time in the process has been allocated to public comment so PLEASE request an opportunity to speak before the committee and/or send an email voicing your concern.

Contact:

- Sylwia Przezdziecki / sylwia_przezdziecki@ontla.ola.or g / 416-325-3515, and
- Tamara Pomanski / tamara_pomanski@ontla.ola.org / 416-325-3515

See hearing schedule and sample letter in a Call to Action here.

Please act now and please pass on this important note.

For all our campaign blogs on the Melancthon quarry, see here.