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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-10-23, Page 11THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1991. PAGE 11. 50 attend third Grey candidate site meeting Despite assurances from civil servants and elected officials, who say it may never happen, the 50 plus Grey township residents who attended the Grey #2 landfill site meeting on Tuesday, October 15, feel with four of the six candidate sites in their township that the odds are against them. County Engineer Denis Merrall told those assembled that the meet­ ings are an avenue for people to express their concerns, but stated that they would like to have the property owners' permission to get on the land and conduct further tests as soon as possible. "The cost of prolonging things is something everyone can relate to," he said. Mr. Merrall stressed that there is nothing to say that any of the four sites are 100 percent suitable, but simply that there has not been enough evidence gathered as yet to say they are not. Grey township reeve Leona Arm­ strong, who served on the waste management steering committee, but was unaware of the consultants' selections until a few minutes before they went public, told the group while she is upset about the selections, she would urge the peo­ ple to co-operate. "The sooner they get on the properties and test the land the sooner it can be eliminated and the sooner we can get on with our lives." "I have been accused of lobbying for all of Huron County's garbage," said Mrs. Armstrong, amid laugh­ ter, "but believe me I don't want it here any more than anyone else does." Charlie Thomas asked high-tech­ solutions had been considered as an alternative to a new landfill site. Mr. Merrall said he prefered the word "alternate" to high-tech as the latter promises high but delivers minimal solutions. He noted that people will have to begin to look at these alternates in order to keep the landfill site, due to government restrictions, which stale that waste management must be in place in a community. "We have this in many places now with recycling and the next step will be composting. The Committee members concerned over where money is being spent continued from page 1 of community volunteers and feed those grassroots ideas upward, through the steering committee to the county committee. "Your job is to identify what needs to be done and get on with it," added Brian Treble, the other planner involved in the program. But committee members were also worried about where the money for the program was being spent. Noting that $277,500 of the total budget went to staff salaries and this is being charged to the four community committees without them having any say about how the money is spent, she wanted to know what the day-to-day duties of staff were. Paul Nichol, a Brussels resident who heads the community develop­ ment project, said staff has two main roles: to take responsibility for developing an economic devel­ opment strategy to present to coun­ ty council and to act as a resource to all the community development groups. So, Ms Mcdonald-Exel said, the special interest sub-com­ mittees are spending money through using the staff time which is then charged up to each commu­ nity development committee. Mr. Chu said that although an extra $10,000 has been freed up from elsewhere in the Planning and Development budget to fund spe­ province is working on finding markets for recyclable materials, but all those roles are not going to eliminate everything," he reminded. As the comments from the public tended to be more "when" than "if', Mr. Merrall reminded the people not to jump to the conclusion the site will be in Grey township. Bob Gebhardt, of Ethel, expressed his concern that the meetings had not been advertised to the public. Ethel is about three miles away from the closest candi­ date site and for that reason Mr. Gebhardt felt it was important for everyone in the area to be given an opportunity to question the com­ mittee. Joanne Richter, coordinator of the Waste Management Steering Committee, explained that while there are obviously many affected by the announcement the process had been set up to first inform the property owners and neighbours who are directly affected. Should the site be selected, then there will be as much opportunity for public input as necessary, she said. Many present expressed discon­ tent at what they see as a cheap solution to an urban problem, while on the other hand they noted the expense of setting up the county landfill site would be costly. Joe Yundt, of RR3, Brussels, said it would seem logical for the landfill site to be located where the majori­ ty of people are, which would save transportation costs. "To me it makes more sense to locate it cen­ trally around Clinton, as that is close to the Goderich and Exeter areas. They're the major contribu­ tors." Committee Chairman Albert Wasson told Mr. Yundt, that while that may appear to make sense the elimination process used in order to keep everything fair did not take trucking or population into consid­ eration. Mr. Merrall then pointed out to everyone that the county does not have a choice. The rules are estab­ lished by the Environmental Assessment Board, which is an arm of the province. They established that transportation is not to be con- cial programs of each of the four community development areas, there is also the opportunity for some of the special interest com­ mittees to get specific funding from outside the program. Some private industries have money to donate, specifically toward environmental projects, he said. There was also considerable debate as to whether the special interest committees could go ahead and initiate projects on their own, or if only the steering committee could authorize action. But there were also expressions of impatience. "There's no use sit­ ting here and splitting hairs," said John A. Currie of the agriculture committee. "We have to get on with things." Mrs. While after being appointed chairman late in the meeting also expressed frustration. She had hoped that the meeting would deal with reports from the special inter­ est communities and let them get on with their work, she said. The volunteers on the environment committee were brimming with ideas and enthusiasm but now they were going to have to wait until after the Nov. 20 meeting of the steering committee before taking action. "We want to know what we can do. The committee is al a stand still until we know what is going on." sidered when selecting candidate sites, Mr. Merrall said, adding that if the county deviates from the rules they will fail and will have wasted the taxpayers' money. To date $350,000 has been spent, plus another $50,000 on consultants' fees. "My job is to follow the pro­ cess, but I'm not here to defend the province," said Mr. Merrall. Mr. Wasson said if all six of the candidate sites are good then the consultants will start to look al things like cost and population to eliminate further. "The elimination process they have used is fair and unbaised," he said. When Mr. Yundt said that sound­ ed like the cart before the horse, Mr. Wasson responded by saying that government has done that before. Gord Cowman, a candidate site property owner asked who decided on one site. Mr. Merrall explained the judgement came early and the Environmental Assessment Board stated that one site has less negative impact than two sites, excluding costs. Residents over site selections continued from page 1 tion in rural areas. This is to be achieved by increased recycling and by programs such as compost­ ing or organic wastes. In the end, he said, the stricter rules for waste reduction might cause more contro­ versy than the choice of a landfill because people may not be ready for the new rules. Recycling quite possibly mightn't be at the same site as the landfill, he said especially since it takes large volumes to make a recycling separation plant viable. Compost­ ing may take place in several sites in the county, depending on what is decided by municipalities later. Asked about the possibility of incineration at the site, Mr. Merrall said that possibility had been rejected earlier by the consultants and since then the province had banned incinerators anyway. As in the three previous meetings for the other three candidate sites in Grey, there were doubts that the Grey No. 6 site was suitable for a landfill site. Abraham Vanderveen asked if the officials were aware that a major creek (Beauchamp Creek) ran right through the area and ran right over bed rock in some areas. Mr. Merrall said that was the kind of information they were hop­ ing to gain from these meetings. Fred Uhler suggested the consul­ tants obviously didn't take into account that the Beauchamp Creek drains 45,000 acres and floods. He had pictures of a spring flood in the area. Mr. Merrall said it would be interesting to see what the consul­ Wingham and District Community Living V Association invites you to the Official Opening of the Administration Building October 23,1991 2:00 p.m. - Drop In/Tours 5:00 p.m. - Official Opening 401 Josephine Street, Wingham Mr. Yundt said, if that was the case then perhaps one dump in the province would be better. "In Toronto," said someone from the back of the room. "We have all these concerns, but it just doesn't matter," said Mr. Yundt. "How do we slop it?" Councillor Dale Newman sug­ gested approaching the provincial government. "Why can't they come up with something that is safe and agreeable. We are going to spend money because we are forced to. The provincial and federal govern­ ments forget we are taxpayers and taxpayers are running out of money," he said. Mr. Newman pointed out as well, that this is defi­ nitely not something the Grey township residents are comfortable with and no matter how many meetings they have to try and address the concerns they will never please the people affected. Other people felt the elimination process was not very accurate. Property owner Jake Hiemstra questioned how they could pick his property as a candidate site when skeptical tants proposed to do about the creek. Others were skeptical about the fact that many of the six candidate sites in the county were wooded areas. They wondered how, after the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) had insisted that conserva­ tion areas and county-managed forests be exempt as sites, sites could be chosen where trees might have to be removed to bury garbage. Mr. Merrall said the MNR set the rules by which the other sites were eliminated. "I'm not here to defend the policy." Mr. Merrall said one of the con­ sequences of the policy of the Min­ istry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) that classes 1-4 farmland not be used is that much of the land that's left is going to be covered in trees. But, he said, there are differ­ ences in the quality of the bush and while some might be a great loss, some might be poorer quality. A questioner suggested the buffer zone around the village of Cran- brook might not be large enough and residents of the village might feel Grey site No. 5 was too close to the village. Mr. Merrall said that if all the current sites are eliminated because of environmental restric­ tions, the county will be able to show OMAF that there is no suit­ able class five and six farmland and they will be then able to look at class three and four farmland that would open up a whole new set of possibilities. they had never been on the land. After it was mentioned that the consultants had driven past the properties one man remarked that they couldn't see Mr. Hiemslra's land for the com. "One of the coun­ cillors said earlier that they weren't happy about the fact that four sites had been picked in Grey. We should be furious," Mr. Hiemstra said. Sharon Cowman, said the fact the consultants had used out-dated soil records was ridiculous. "That means anything eliminated could be inaccurate. I'm suggesting that if they use improper data then the study is improper." Mr. Merrall said that while the records may be crude they were used to exclude certain properties and if the taxpayers wanted the county to do a property by property lest it would lake years. "This is the method they chose and though you are the unlucky recipients it was fair and consistent." Helping the world write now In the world’s poorest countries, relief is only temporary, but education is permanent. To make a donation, call 1-800-661-CODE. c o O L Self-sufficiency through literacy in the developing world. IN MEMORY OF UNCLE TOM Dear Uncle Tom: What would I do right now with­ out my childhood memories of the time I spent with you at the farm. All the seemingly Insignificant little things that I remember suddenly become very important and full of meaning. Remember ... - when I would take your hand and then reach for Grandpa's as we walked to the barn. - when you would lift me up so I could reach the latch on the barn door. - when you would squirt me with cow's milk when you were milking. - the first time you let ME milk one of the cows. - the night you woke me up to go to the barn because one of the cows was about to give birth and then she had twins. - when I would sit on your knee while learning to play euchre. - how you were always telling me I was Just like my Dad. - the time you and Grandpa taught me how to drive the tractor. - the quiet walks over to ~the other place" to bring the cows home for milking. - the time I was thirteen and you let me drive the truck over to "the other place" to get Grandpa from the back field. - every time we went near an electric fence you would ask me to touch it to make sure it was working, (always a tease). - the time you sent me into Maggies to get you a chocolate bar and I wondered all that day why you hadn't told me to get one for myself. Then that evening in the barn you sent me upstairs to throw down the hay and there, on the top bale, was the chocolate bar. You looked up through the hole at me and winked. When I sat down to write this letter I wanted to be sent back to those days, if only for five minutes, so I could hold your hand and Grandpa's Just once more. To relive those happy memories I have of both of you. Just once more. But in writing these words Uncle Tom. I have felt the touch of your hands in mine and I have gone back to relive those memories. God took Grandpa from us ten years ago and this week He has taken you, but neither of you will ever be gone because you will always live in me. - GWEN BERNARD FISHER