"The most exemplary nature is that of topsoil. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter in it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory but as richness, new possibility" Wendell Berry
National Post Reports ..... Sarah Harmer 1 - Lafarge 0
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February 13, 2009
** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
Tough Report on Nelson Aggregate
Quarry Application Cheered
Burlington quarry application is unacceptable
Please see our news Section at the link below for a related story Breaking NEWS: JART REPORTS Transplanted Endangered Butternut Trees DEAD
PERL Starting to formulate it's NEW VISION FOR MT NEMO See link for more info.
Burlington--Ontario citizens, environmental organizations, and residents are reassured by the release this week of the multi-agency Joint Agency Review Team (“JART”) Report that science and good planning will stop the proposed quarry. JART experts from the City of Burlington, Halton Region, Niagara Escarpment Commission, Conservation Halton and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources spent over 4 years reviewing the Nelson Aggregate Burlington quarry application and technical studies.
The consensus report highlights major, inherent problems in the 150-acre Nelson Aggregate Burlington quarry proposal.“The JART report is unmistakable in its negative assessment of this quarry application,” said Sarah Harmer, a Co-Founder of the Burlington citizens’ group ProtectingEscarpmentRuralLand (“PERL”). “As the existing 50 year-old quarry winds down operations in the next few years, it is time for an exit strategy and a new, ecologically sustainable vision for Mount Nemo”, she added.“PERL is very pleased that government experts have clearly expressed the inappropriateness of the MountNemo location for a below water table quarry”, said Roger Goulet, PERL’s Executive Director and a local resident. “Improving quality of life, the natural environment, and developing educational and ecologically sensitive uses of the former industrial site can create job opportunities, eco-tourism, and launch a new beginning for this fountainhead atop the Niagara Escarpment”, he added.
The JART Report also highlights issues surrounding consultation with First Nations, regarding a 1600’s longhouse village settlement and thousands of artifacts unearthed on site. PERL’s lawyer David Donnelly filed a submission calling for further review of the company’s First Nations consultation program, thoroughness of bone fragment analysis and historical significance of village site.
A few of the highlights of the JART Report: “JART concludes that the Nelson application does not adequately address the policies of the Niagara Escarpment Plan.” Pg 7
“The application does not meet portions of the Niagara Escarpment Plan, Region of Halton, and City of Burlington Official Plans.” Pg 5
“The proposed footprint would include extraction in significant woodlands and a provincially significant wetland” Pg 5 (This is not allowed under the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS))
“The inadequacy of the buffers proposed (for Provincially Significant Wetlands) is contrary to the Provincial Policy Statement.” Pg 9
“Nelson has not demonstrated to JART’s satisfaction that there will be no unacceptable impacts on streams and water supplies”. Pg 7
“Owing to the central location on the Mount Nemo Plateau, both the proposed quarry and the existing quarry present challenges with respect to the protection of headwater wetlands and watercourses which originate on the plateau. Further, the connectivity of the natural features and functions across the plateau is a critical component of natural heritage systems planning. The proposed extraction footprint will compromise these features and linkages.” Pg 9
“With respect to wells and hydrogeology, questions around lake filling, wetland protection, the impacts on private wells (water quality and quantity) remain.” Pg 5
PERL’s submissions to the JART in January 2009 highlighted the need to: (1) harmonize the Niagara Escarpment Plan with the Greenbelt Plan in advance of the Joint Board hearing, starting with updating the land designations on Mount Nemo, as recommended in the JART Report; (2) design and implement a Natural Heritage System for Mount Nemo after consultation with PERL and other stakeholders; and, (3) review the archaeological assessment and bone analysis of a 400 year-old First Nations village discovered on site.
The quarry review process assesses the application against a 24 year-old Niagara Escarpment Plan. “Making permanent land use changes to MountNemo using the outdated Niagara Escarpment Plan is like trying to fix a hybrid car using a 1985 repair manual”, said David Donnelly, counsel to PERL and Environmental Defence.“Halton Region needs to spend 52 cents on a letter to the province asking for an updated Niagara Escarpment Plan that’s finally Harmonized with the Greenbelt, before we spend millions on a hearing no one except the developer really wants”, Donnelly added.
The JART Report goes to a public meeting in Halton Region at KilbridePublic School,February 19, 2009. -30 -
Contact: David Donnelly (416) 722-0220 Sarah Harmer (416) 461-4454
For Immediate Release Feb 3, 2009
URGENT: Attend this crucial meeting on the Mount Nemo Quarry application
After 4 years of study, the government Joint Agency Review Team (JART) is presenting its Report on Nelson Aggregate's quarry application. Experts have confirmed that this quarry proposal is poorly conceived and poses significant risk to our well water, our health and the health of our environment. You can help defeat this application.
Why should you care about this massive quarry application?
Nelson Aggregate/LaFarge has proposed a new 140-acre quarry on the Niagara Escarpment's sensitive Mount Nemo in North Burlington that is:
Part of the Provincially Significant Grindstone Creek Headwater Wetland Complex
Headwaters of Bronte, Grindstone, Tuck, Shoreacres, Appleby, Mount Nemo, Willoughby & Lowville Creek Systems
Home to rich biodiversity - Threatened Jefferson Salamander and Endangered Butternut Tree species
Nelson Aggregate/LaFarge is proposing to:
Blast below the water table risking major groundwater decline and negative impact on hundreds of domestic wells
Destroy up to 75,000 coniferous trees that provide clean air and offset harmful CO2 emissions
Destroy Provincially Significant Wetlands and Significant Old Growth Carolinian Forests
Continue to emit dust and conduct major blasting in a community which has already endured 55 years of open pit mining
What will happen at this meeting?
JART will present its report outlining its findings. You can question the experts and let JART know how you feel about this application by speaking out at this meeting.
“I couldn’t imagine a worse place to put a below-water-table quarry.” Senior water scientist Wilf Ruland
JART Public Meeting
February 19, 2009 6 – 9 pm JART presentation at 7 pm
Kilbride Public School Auditorium
We still strongly recommend that you attend the meeting so that you can hear the JART presentation and benefit from the subsequent Q & A.
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For Immediate Release Jan 30, 2009
Perl Hydrogeologist responds to comments regarding his review of proponents latest report
In the most recent in a series of responses and counter responses, Ray Blackport continues to find significant issues with the conclusions reached by Nelson Aggregates consultants. For a detailed technical account, see the link below.
Or Go to the Reports and Submissions page of this site.
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For Immediate Release November 20, 2008
New Niagara Escarpment Quarry Proposal Headed to Ontario Municipal Board Government and environmental groups call referral to OMB “premature” and risky
Burlington, ON—Nelson Aggregate/ LaFarge has prematurely triggered a hearing in front of the Environmental Review Tribunal and the Ontario Municipal Board (called the ‘Joint Board’), forcing environmental groups, the Provincial Ministry of Natural Resources, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, Halton Region and the City of Burlington to now face a December 8, 2008 pre-hearing conference. Unless the McGuinty government stops this unnecessary process, a hearing could start as early as spring 2009.
Nelson Aggregate /LaFarge is proposing a new quarry be situated in the heart of Mount Nemo, a significant landform in North Burlington on the Niagara Escarpment and in Ontario’s Greenbelt. Mount Nemo is a unique geological feature. As a plateau, it sits above the landscape and relies solely on rainwater to supply an aquifer vital to hundreds of families and businesses on well water. It is a source water recharge area with over 20 tributaries originating on top of it and along its slopes. It is also habitat of Threatened and Endangered species such as the Butternut Tree and Jefferson Salamander, which Nelson/LaFarge is seeking to remove.
“We are very anxious that the protection of Mount Nemo not be shunted to a risky and grossly expensive process when the majority of the public and their democratically elected governments in the area support outright protection,” said Sarah Harmer, co-founder of Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL).
Conservative estimates of the budgets required to fight the case at the Ontario Municipal Board and Environmental Review Tribunal are in the millions of dollars for what could be a six month hearing.
In May 2006 and again in April 2008, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, Conservation Halton, the Region of Halton, and the City of Burlington all objected to Nelson Aggregate’s request for license approval under the Aggregate Resources Act, stating that such a request is premature. Chief amongst these concerns is that the Joint Agency Review Team, a government review process, has not finished its work reviewing the proposal. The hearing could proceed before this work is completed.
PERL has identified several critical matters like source water and species protection that the McGuinty government should address before the public be forced to squander precious time and resources fighting the proposed 150-acre quarry. Mount Nemo has endured over 50 years of aggregate extraction from a 640-acre Nelson Aggregate quarry that is now nearly exhausted.
PERL and Resterra Strategies recently invited Order of Canada architect Douglas Cardinal to Burlington to participate in creating a vision for a naturalized future for Mount Nemo and North Burlington as an alternative to more blasting and gravel trucks. Cardinal called for the Mount Nemo Headwaters Natural Heritage System to be completed before any new industrial activity is proposed for the area.
“Ontario residents expect that the McGuinty government will intervene and stay the Joint Board until the most sensitive features of the Niagara Escarpment have been protected,” said Dr. Rick Smith, Executive Director of Environmental Defence, a key member of the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance. “It is unconscionable that the last mapping and protection of wetlands, headwaters and threatened species on the Escarpment hasn’t occurred since Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister. That’s embarrassing.”
PERL met last week to consider whether a boycott of the hearing is necessary in light of the recent OMB case involving a developer seeking an unprecedented $3.2 million cost award against a citizens’ group and PERL’s lawyer David Donnelly in the Big Bay Point matter.
“We know of other citizens’ groups that have abandoned their opposition to projects at the OMB because there is no SLAPP suit protection in Ontario,” Harmer said. Ontario has no anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation like the recently introduced Bill 99 in Quebec. PERL is optimistic a careful review of the facts of the sensitive Mount Nemo hydrogeology and ecology will lead to the provincial government protecting the critical headwaters area of the Grindstone and Bronte Creeks without resorting to a premature and lengthy Board hearing.
About Environmental Defence (www.environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence protects the environment and human health. We research solutions. We educate. We go to court when we have to. All in order to ensure clean air, clean water and thriving ecosystems nationwide, and to bring a halt to Canada’s contribution to climate change.
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For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Sarah Harmer, PERL, (416) 461-4454 Roger Goulet, PERL, (905) 335-4219 Jennifer Foulds, Environmental Defence, (416) 323-9521 ext. 232; (647) 280-9521 (cell) Email: Info@perlofburlington.org or visit www.perlofburlington.org
