The Council of Canadians has donated $500 to a Sustainable North Grenville fundraising campaign to keep the Kemptville Dandelion Festival free of sponsorship from TransCanada, the company behind the controversial 1.1 million barrels per day tar sands pipeline.
Local musicians, upon hearing that the festival had accepted money from TransCanada after its federal grant had been reduced, threatened to withdraw from the festival given the impact the pipeline would have on their community. The local environmental group Sustainable North Grenville launched a fundraising campaign on Saturday to raise $5,000 so that TransCanada’s sponsorship money would not be needed.
As of this moment (May 4, 9:30 am), $4,335 has been raised. The community has until May 8 to raise the remaining $665 and there is every confidence that they will be able to do so.
Kemptville is a community located in the Municipality of North Grenville about 60 kilometres south of Ottawa. The Energy East pipeline would cross directly over the Oxford aquifer, from which 70 per cent of North Grenville’s residents draw their drinking water. The aquifer has been classified as ‘highly vulnerable to pollution’ because the soil there is very thin and the rock is riddled with holes and fractures. The pipeline route would also cross a significant groundwater recharge area. All of this makes the drinking water in the area very vulnerable should the pipeline spill.
The Council of Canadians organized a public forum in Kemptville featuring Maude Barlow to highlight these issues in April 2014.
For more on our campaign to stop the Energy East pipeline, please click here.
