The Owen Sound Sun Times reports, “Melancthon Mayor Bill Hill invited (neighbouring) Southgate council members to join farmers, ranchers and First Nations representatives supported by the Council of Canadians in a 115-kilometre walk from Toronto to Melancthon Township to show their opposition to the (massive open pit quarry) project. The group started out on foot and horseback from Queen’s Park on Friday, where about 250 people had gathered on Earth Day to discuss the project’s potentially negative impact on the regions groundwater, farming and quality of life. At the end of the walk participants will gather for a pot luck dinner at the owner of a farm adjacent to the proposed mining operation, Hill said.”
Council of Canadians organizer Mark Calzavara and organizing assistant Maryam Adrangi will be in Melancthon today to welcome the quarry opponents who walked from Toronto to raise broader public awareness about this issue.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow says, “Last year we stopped Dump Site 41 – a landfill that would have contaminated the groundwater in Simcoe County. We will do everything we can to help this community protect itself. With the shocking indifference of the provincial government and the pure greed of the American billionaires that bought up the farmland, this will be an uphill battle. But there will be a provincial election in October and we have tens of thousands of members in Ontario – and they love to vote!”
More to come.
