HOT ISSUES @ bpeg.ca

The Ministry of Environment’s July 7, 2009 letter to the hydrological consultant working for the proponent of the Keppel Quarry expansion was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The letter written by W. Armstrong, Regional Environmental Planner from the Ministry of Environment states:

“The potential impacts upon the Shouldice Wetland are still undefined…… the karst assessment in the April 8, 2009 Cowell Report … concludes that the wetland is hydraulically connected to the underlying bedrock and likely both gives water to and receives water from the bedrock.”

“If the proposed quarry proceeds and it induces drawdown impacts similar to those of the existing quarry, the cone of influence from the advancing extraction face will at some point spread beneath the Shouldice Wetland. Given current data, it is unclear when this will happen and what the water resource impacts will be. The interaction between the Shouldice Wetland and the bedrock needs to be better defined and the potential impacts of localized de-watering near and beneath the wetland needs to be more accurately forecast.”

“Given this continuing uncertainty about hydrogeologic impacts, we are not able to provide a further opinion as to the hydrologic impacts upon those surface water features in the vicinity of the proposed quarry. Based on the predicted hydrologic impacts, in our view, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority (GSCA) will need to consider the consequences of those hydrologic impacts upon natural heritage features and fluctuations and come to some position regarding what are acceptable impacts.”

To view the full correspondence see the slides at:
http://smugmug.com/gallery/6000046_zj4H8#567867874_qF4pP

(Photos are best viewed by clicking on the large photo, then clicking through the 137 images with the ">" button. Alternate method to view photos is click the "slideshow" button, then click the "fast" button in top left of screen. You may need the free Adobe "Flash" reader to be loaded on your computer for proper viewing.)

Does the Ministry of Environment really let the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority decide what are “acceptable impacts?”
That seems like a conflict of interest: The Ministry of Natural Resources have a mandate to develop quarries under the Aggregate Resources Act. The Grey Sauble Conservation Authority is funded by aggregate fees/taxes collected by the local governments who have already expressed public support for the quarry expansion. Are they really taking an unbiased perspective in the approval process?

The proposed expansion of the Keppel Quarry is adjacent to the Provincially Significant Wetlands that are the headwaters of the local spring fed lakes Francis, McNab and Shallow Lake. The location is also adjacent to the headwaters of the Park Head Creek and Sauble River. Many residents of both Grey and Bruce County may be impacted by the decisions to approve the Keppel Quarry Expansion. According to the MOE, the impact on these wetlands are unknown and potentially of high impact.

Surely there are better locations to locate blast extracted rock quarries. What evidence is there that the site needs to be located within the Niagara Escarpment Plan area, in a designated Greenbelt? The proposed site is also in a recognized World Biosphere Reserve and adjacent to an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest. Surely there are better locations for a quarry.

What can you do to object to the Keppel Quarry Expansion? Write to decision makers now, during the review process. Your written objection will help!

1) Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, Legislative Building, Queen's Park, Toronto ON M7A1A1
or log your comments with the Premier at web site: http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/default.asp

2) Honorable Donna Cansfield, Ministry of Natural Resources
6th floor, Room 6630, Whitney Block, 99 Wellesley Street, West,Toronto, Ontario M7A 1W3
or comment online at:
http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/ContactUs/index.html
select Online Feedback: Please select a Subject “Message to the Minister”

3) Dwight Duncan, Ministry of Finance, email at: Duncan.mpp@liberal.ola.org

4) Kevin Daniel Flynn, Ministry of Environment, email at: Kflynn.mpp@liberal.ola.org

5) Hon. Michael Gravelle, Northern Development and Mines,email at: Mgravelle.mpp@liberal.ola.org

6) Hon. Gerry Phillips, email at: Gphillips.mpp@liberal.ola.org

7) Hon. Leona Dombrowski , Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs,
email at: Ldombrowsky.mpp@liberal.ola.org

8) Bill Mauro, Ministry of Natural Resources
Suite 6522 6th Floor, Whitney Block, 99 Wellesley Street, W., Toronto M7A 1W3

9) Honorable John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment, 12th floor, 135 St. Clair Avenue W., Toronto, ON, M4V 1P5
or online at: http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/forms/email-form.php?replyRequested=y

10) Write a letter of support to the Niagara Escarpment Commission (the NEC have opposed the Amendment Plan PG 167 - Quarry Expansion) Kathryn Pounder, Senior Planner, NEC, 232 Guelph Road, Georgetown, Ontario L7G4B1

Or email: Kathryn.pounder@ontario.ca

11) Write a letter to the editor of:

The Owen Sound SunTimes, 290 9th Street East, Owen Sound, Ontario, N4K 5P2
or by web: http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx

The Wiarton Echo, Box 220, Wiarton, Ontario N0H2T0
Or by web: http://www.wiartonecho.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx

The Toronto Star, Ian Urquhart at email: oped@thestar.ca
or write to address: One Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E6.

(Letters to editors must include full name, address and all phone numbers of sender (daytime, evening and cell phone. Street names and phone numbers will not be published.)

Rare species need your help. The health of our eco system is in question. Once the government approves the quarry, it will be too late.

I am concerned about shore waterwells along Isthmus Bay. The number of wells drilled into the shore rock appears to be growing and as expected, the wave action is starting to break apart the rock surrounding some of these installations. Fiberglas embedded concrete has, in some cases, been installed to stabilize the degradation of the rockbed. In fact, large shelfs of rock have been noted beginning to break off in the near vicinity of what I would deem to be a shoreline intrusion. How much research was done on the the line of water UNDER the rock before these wells were allowed?

If you haven't seen one, you should. Not only do they disturb the natural shoreline but also the rock shelves leading to them in order for the equipment to get to the proposed locations. Will there be a stop to these installations? Have problems been reported? I realize that some mechanical means are necessary for water uptake but many cottagers have (seasonally) drawn water directly from the lake for years and although they have had their time with waterlines during excessively rough water weather, for the most part, the black waterline running above the rock through guides has provided clear, clean drinking water (surprisingly free of contaminants). If anything gives during bad weather in this design it is the guide, not the rock. Do we call these wells 'progress'?

The problems of maintaining the pristine nature of this portion of the Bruce Trail is, in my own opinion, jeopardized by year round living. It is going to mean more destruction if the municipality goes ahead with running full services to the year round homes that are being built here. This will mean realigning part of the roadway and digging trenches and lines to each property.

To what degree are these new homes required to be (for the sake of another word) green-designed? I'm not sure how we got to this point! If year round habitation results in destruction of the shoreline and (please remember) this portion of the coveted Bruce Trail, perhaps there should be more stringent planning and building controls enforced to protect the natural environment. With the size of development going on along this stretch and especially with the proximity to both water and roadway, if I was a Bruce Trail hiker, I would think I had taken a wrong turn.

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down!

How did you like your last election?
Or as I call it a process of pre-selection
You think different colours on signs represent a real choice?
Man, these fools are all speaking with the same voice
Maybe that’s why turnout reached a staggering 50%
This province is rapidly becoming low rent

What we need is an ideological eradication
Before we lose what little is left of our nation,
Of this system capitalistic, materialistic, hedonistic
Not enough carrot, too much stick

Have you done the mathematics
Or do I have to draw you a schematic
4 in 20 give McGuinty a majority?!
What the hell is wrong with me?
When I think I still live in a democracy
Get this parasitic system off of me

MP3, CD, DVD, HDTV…
Ever wonder why all the distractions rhyme with free or tree or things that really matter like just BE…
At one with nature and stop living in prison of your own construction
And banish the lies of psychological occupation
Remove yourself from the process of converting the living to the dead
And stop the brands and slogans and perversity from swimming inside your head

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down!

Get out to your local big box, arctic fox
Can’t hear the squawk of the Great Auk or the songs of the Beothuk…What the $#@%?
I couldn’t make this stuff up
This culture just won’t stop

Condemning species and cultures to eradication, extirpation, extinction and annihilation!
Are these words too confusing? Can’t you see the connection?
Pick up a dictionary or a book and stop twiddling your thumbs flipping from station to station.
The media thinks elections are there for our entertainment
But what we have is lies, disinformation and cultural enslavement
Indoctrination followed by mass capitulation
And it happens in every “civilized” nation
Without fear of retaliation
Democracy has degraded to a sporting event and we’re just spectators
Blindly marking X’s on paper giving credibility to the next dictator

Whenever some are brave enough to truly challenge this authority
By taking to the streets demanding peace and life with dignity and equality
Remember Winnipeg, Haymarket, Seattle, Kent State or Quebec City!
They bring it down upon us like a hammer
Tear gas Rubber bullets or real ones or rendition in some foreign rat-hole slammer
What they want is complete obedience
And consumerist subservience

Gotta keep the militaristic war drums drumming
And this cancerous economy humming
Invent some foreign enemy
And keep the populace sedated with booze, pills,gadgets and pornography

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising and I know it
This system, we’ll overthrow it

Man those Romans really knew what they were doing
Before they got corrupted and fell in ruin
Keeping their populations in sedation with circuses and bread
While irrigating, expanding and quenching their empire with rivers of blood and mountains of dread

Today it’s the same we’re being kept fat and lazy
And our knowledge of history is being made intentionally hazy
Keeping us buying and shopping and filling our houses with all the products the system keeps flogging
While the people in the 3rd world are doing the real slogging
Picking your coffee and cocoa or scraping coal from a mine
and breeding kids to fill the sweatshops so you can buy a shirt for $7.99

I tell you what I know and you may not want to hear it
This system is about to meet people who no longer fear
They are full of seething rage and hatred for this immoral culture
Which treats the earth like a rotting carcass and we’re the hungry vulture

Do you have enough distractions yet?
Are you being adequately entertained?
Have your freedoms faced enough contractions yet?
Have your rights been sufficiently constrained?
How about your habits and patterns? Are they yet completely surveilled?
How about your movements and travel? Are they now somewhat curtailed?

Well you aint seen nothing yet. This system doesn’t trust you
It thinks you are a consumable cog and when you’re spent will crush you.
It won’t be truly happy until every thought you have or move you make
Is patrolled or tolled or told to you or recorded on some tape

Take back this world and rip what’s yours from their greedy hands.
A purge is needed to cleanse what contaminates this land
Throwing a spanner in the works of this death cult, picking easy targets
The globalists, polluters, the liars and the prophets of the market
Take to the streets the damage we must inflict it.
The current ideology, we must contradict it
We must act in secret taking actions with autonomy
With deception, and disguises sabotaging the economy
Blowing up gasoline tankers under concrete overpasses,
Toppling towers of communication causing chaos for the masses
This system is a house of cards. A fragile yet hungry snake
The destiny of those who follow decided by the actions that we take

We outnumber them, we’re right, we just have to believe
That the only limit to what we can attain is what we can conceive

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down

It appears that the shrimp ring has become an expected part of the holiday appetizer table, centered like a wreath between the cheese ball and plate of shortbread. And for good reason… they taste great, they are easy to purchase, and it is the season for indulgence. So why should I run the risk of sounding like a Grinch by questioning one of our nouveau traditions?

Well, worldwide our fisheries are in crisis and although we’ve heard this our entire lives, there is little evidence to suggest a change in tide. We continue to fish down the food web (e.g., we now fish for smaller/lower things including jellyfish, sea cucumber, etc…), destroy habitat, over harvest (e.g., since the 1950’s we’ve lost 90% of the large fishes), and drive species to commercial extinction. Unwittingly, our consumption patterns support economies that are not sustainable.

Although shrimp appear as common as cod in a 1970s grocer’s freezer, they are not exempt from this crisis. In fact most of the shrimp we are likely to find in the local grocery stores (e.g., imported black tiger shrimp, tiger prawn, white shrimp, etc…) do not come from sustainable fisheries. As much as I like shrimp I feel compelled to avoid these products. Imported wild shrimp are usually caught in trawl nets which have the highest bycatch of any commercial fishery - for every pound of shrimp hauled in, three to 15 pounds of unwanted animals die in the process. Imported farmed shrimp has problems too. About 3.7 million acres of tropical coastal mangroves have been converted to shrimp farms, destroying important habitat for fish,
birds and people. So much waste builds up in the farm ponds that the farmers have to move on within a few years, leaving a legacy of polluted water and destroyed mangrove forests.

My background is as a fishery biologists and I’ll admit it is a daunting task sorting out this whole issue of what seafood we should buy or avoid. But, fear not there is lots of help out there. While on vacation a few years ago, we found ourselves in Monterey Bay, California. Two things, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and a friend researching sea otters drew us there. Both were great to see, but the one thing I carried away was an introduction the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood WATCH program (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp). I strongly
suggest you go to the website and copy the one page handy pocket reference guide. The intention of the program is to help consumers make wise seafood choices – choices that create a market demand for sustainable fisheries. So have a look and discover why Atlantic salmon and bluefin tuna should be avoided, while Alaskan sockeye or canned skipjack are better choices.

The Seafood WATCH website can also help us figure out what to do with that jar of shrimp sauce. It tells us, for example that there are some sustainable shrimp fisheries out there. The BC spot prawn fishery uses traps (I even had my own sets) thereby minimizing habitat destruction and bycatch. In Oregon the trawl configuration used to catch pink shrimp is deemed to be less damaging and to have less bycatch than traditional bottom trawlers.

The reality though is that these products can be hard to find. Most often you’ll read packages and ask questions only to learn the shrimp are from Thailand or India, two areas to be avoided. And so, as we set the appetizers out this holiday season, the shrimp wreath can still be the centerpiece, but perhaps you could look to the North Pole or at least northern BC for your supply.

Just one more thing for our conscience to machinate.

Scott Parker

Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken, (How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming). Viking Penguin, 2007

Paul Hawken is a long time environmentalist and author who decided to attempt an understanding of the roots, breadth and nature of the present environmental movement. Blessed Unrest is the result. The book is deeply researched but well and simply written with 190 pages of text and 152 pages of appendices, notes, bibliography and index. I found it a fascinating read.

In ‘The Beginnings’ Hawken reviews his attempts in presentations to balance the ‘doom and gloom’ stories of environmental degradation with the small but plentiful glimmerings of hope from individuals and groups like ours doing positive productive work at the community level. The book is peppered with great little stories, one of which refers to an ancient rabbinical teaching: If the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, you first plant a tree and then see if the story is true – among other things, a reminder of the human need for critical thinking even in the face of crisis.
One of Hawken’s main themes is the necessary connection between the environmental and social justice movements. Both have roots stretching a long way back but the modern environmental movement he traces to the the first space satellites and especially the first moon shot in which the astronauts looked back and we saw for the first time the world as the beautiful but surely limited, small space ship that it is.

In ‘The Long Green’ Hawken looks back to the roots of the environmentalism in the work of earlier naturalists, thinkers and authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries –Muir, Leopold, Emerson, Frost and others.

‘The Rights of Business’ traces the on-going battle between such ‘rights’ and individual and environmental ‘rights’. The well known efforts on the part of some (not all by any means) large corporate bodies to suppress, confuse and distort the evidence of their destructive greed, stupidity and corruption are indeed horror stories and bear repeating. They cannot help but raise the ire of the reader all over again.

The chapter called ‘Indigine’ digs deeper into the European/ American contacts throughout history and reminds us of the frailty of human intelligence but also reminds of the knowledge and wisdom found in native traditions thankfully undergoing something of a renaissance today all across the Americas.

In ‘We Interrupt This Empire’ Hawken outlines the past efforts on the part of the ‘Western World’ to dominate and control development in the rest of the world by all the well known techniques of military and naval power, capital and resource flows, even slavery.
The more recent version of all this is of course the phenomenon known as ‘globalization’ sponsored by the major western nations and their corporate bodies: The World Bank and The World Trade Organization and the largest of the corporate giants bent on replaceing smaller scale economies with larger scale. One author quoted states: ‘there is no economy of scale, there is only nature’s economy’. Hawken aims serious criticisms at the practices of the WTO and the World Bank. Referring to the protests in Seattle which were very badly handled and many protesters were badly beaten by police, he says the people are still here and we are not going away.
This depressing chapter however ends with a wonderful Inuit story about hubris called ‘Skeleton Woman’

‘Restoration’ is Hawken’s more positive view of the present and future apparent trends toward effective well funded cooperative partnerships between awakening corporate bodies and environmental and social justice groups. These partnerships are already sponsoring beneficial and restorative change which may just bring about the survival of our species. His view is that the environmental movement’s lack of structure, its diversity of huge numbers of small groups with a loose, always changing network is actually our strength giving us flexibility, constant renewal and freedom from the constraints of an ossifying body of obtuse dogma.

We may not agree with everything in Blessed Unrest but it may present us with some different thoughts and some encouragement to continue our work which we now realize is not in isolation after all.

Don McIlraith