mega-quarry woes
Melancthon is 120 kms north west of Toronto. This area is classified as Class 1 agricultural land, boasting a rare and unique soil called Honeywood Silt Loam which grows a multitude of vegetables, especially potatoes, and serves as a source of local food production for the Greater Toronto Area
Melancthon Township, Ontario, potato farms. 2011 a US-backed company applied to the provincial government for a limestone quarry. 2400 acres, a billion tons of Amabel dolostone 58 metres deep. Big protests: farmers, First Nations, ranchers, environmentalists. Big problems with water, as 58 metres is well below the water table, water, 600 million litres a day would rush into the excavation and have to be taken away. To where and how?
Yesterday, project abandoned. The Globe reports that 6 years ago a purported potato farmer started to acquire land, and last year the mega-quarry was announced. The spokesperson for Highland Companies which owns the land and will continue to farm it, said the problem is that they didn't engage the local community or explain well enough the benefits of the mega-quarry.
This is how CAPP always puts it and why they run a massive campaign on how wonderful oil sands development is on Canadian television channels: if the public objects to any kind of resource-extraction development such as the oil sands, or in this case, a mega-quarry, it is because the public doesn't have the right information. Then throw in how many jobs have now been lost with both the quarry and related industries and well, the public is a fool.
The Suzuki Foundation didn't think it such a good idea; they aren't exactly ignorant, and the local website the map above comes from lays out some very convincing information. And it might be that the public does have the 'right information' but doesn't like it, or believe it. Must the equation be money/jobs vs environment, even if that environment isn't wilderness but is already engaged in some other industrial capacity, such as agriculture?
It shows what a player limestone is: roads, building, development – a mega-industry with mega-installations.