[All] Puslinch gravel activists win!!!
Richard and Norah Chaloner
nrchaloner at hotmail.com
Fri Jan 22 10:01:18 EST 2010
Excerpts from a jubilant email from Helen Purdy who also worked so hard on this.
Good data for references ... on the experts used.. for future reference for GREN. Norah
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A GOOD NEWS STORY!!
Kathy and Barry White and Dennis Lever, President of the neigbourhood
Cranberry Area Resident's and Ratepayer's Association (CAARA) worked so
hard to achieve what was the right decision.
It is a terrible state of affairs when citizen groups cannot rely
on their elected officials and planning staff to throughly review
technical reports, etc. and make decisions that will protect the public
interest. I don't know what the Mayor of the Township will have to say
if he is asked for comment by the local newspapers. At every turn, he
worked against the interests of the 100 and more residents in the
Aikensville area. That has been his usual stance when it comes to the
establishment of pits in the township.
I believe that the OMB decision is precedent-setting as I don't
believe that the Board has ever ruled against a sand and gravel pit
application before. There was one case where a Company wanted to
remove ornamental stone from a quarry and it was turned down.
Otherwise, I don't know of another case where a municipality or a group
of citizens were successful.
Dr. Bradford, a hydrogeologist, and expert on water budgets and
impacts of wetlands was truly professional in giving expert testimony
of behallf of the CARRA group. She is a Professor at the University of
Guelph and I was so impressed with her decisiveness and quick
responses. She just blew away the testimony of the "geoscientist" consultant for the gravel company. the "Professional Geologists Association"
of Ontario formed around 2001 but the qualifications of some of their
members are somewhat clouded in mystery. They wanted to join the
Professional Engineers Association of Ontario as a branch but the
Professional Engineers wanted nothing to do with them. I have to
chuckle when I visit their website--they are so full of their
importance as scientists! I have questioned the work of Capital's
geoscientist on many occasions.
Dr. DiGiovanni, an air quality expert, did an expert job in
testifying as to the particulate matter that will be spewed out by the
crushers and other machinery on site as well as the gas emissions and
dust from the gravel trucks. This was very precedent-setting testimony
because air quality has not been given any attention at OMB hearings.
The Provincial Standards for the Aggregate Resources Act don't require
an air quality impact assessment technical report to be submitted for a
pit licence application. Dr. DiGiovanni lives in Guelph and conducted
himself in a very professional manner when giving his testimony. A
true and highly-qualified scientist!
I have the greatest respect for Rod Northey, CARRA's environmental
and planning lawyer. Back in 2005, he won an Appeal to the Courts
(Sage versus the County of Wellington). Rod represented the couple who
were tenants at the Little Tract farmhouse in the Township of
Puslinch. After 13 years residing in the old farmhouse, the County of
Wellington tried to evict the family when they asked for the well to be
repaired or replaced because of the presence of e-coli bacteria in the
water and to replace the roof of the house. The Mayor tof the Township
was one of the protagonists in the matter along with the County's
CAO. The 200-acre farm had been given as a gift to the County in 1946
by John Little and it was to be held in trust as a perpetual forest and
wildlife preserve. The family did not have the financial resources to
go to Court but Rod decided that the appeal case should be heard and he
represented the family without costs, other than their agreement to pay
disbursement fees.
The County of Wellington ended up having to pay the court costs of
about $24,000. Later, the County of Wellington offered the family
$35,000 to move out of the house and Rod suggested that they should
consider the offer as the County could do the repair work but after it
was done they could proceed to give them notice to vacate. The family
accepted and were able to use the money for a down payment on a
house. Apparently the case is now in Ontario's and Canada's case law
books.
I thought that you
would be interested in the GOOD NEWS that spread through Puslinch
Township today. I believe that Environmental Defence will be issuing a
news release about the case sometime soon so you might be interested in
going to their website.
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