The Toronto Star reports today that, “About 30 people from the nearby Christian Island Reserve on Georgian Bay have been camped out for two months in a farmer’s field across the road from Site 41 in Simcoe County’s Tiny Township. They vow to stay until the dump, which is scheduled to open this summer, is closed permanently to prevent it from compromising the safety of drinking water for hundreds of kilometres around. …Recently, a growing list of critics, including First Nations groups and environmentalists David Suzuki and Maude Barlow, have added their voices to those of local opponents demanding the site be shuttered permanently.”
“Yesterday, several dozen placard-toting dump opponents tried to speak with (Ontario Premier Dalton) McGuinty at an infrastructure funding announcement at Georgian College in Barrie, but were escorted off campus by city police. Officers said college officials had asked them to eject the peaceful protesters. While McGuinty refused to meet with the demonstrators, he said he appreciated their concerns.”
McGuinty said, “I know it is a difficult issue for some of the folks around here and I can understand that. We need landfill sites. The best advice that we’re getting is …we can do this in a way that does not compromise the quality of the environment.”
And yet, Site 41 will “sit on productive farmland” and “is also directly over a vast aquifer that stretches from Georgian Bay to the Oak Ridges Moraine and contains what some scientists say is the world’s most pristine drinking water. The 20-hectare facility …is slated to hold 1.6 million cubic metres of garbage over its expected lifespan of 40 to 50 years.”
The full article is at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/662522.
Premier Dalton McGuinty, who represents the provincial riding of Ottawa-South, can be reached at dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org. For more information on Site 41, please go to http://canadians.org/water/issues/Site41/index.html.
