The Rural Voice, 2002-01, Page 20GREY & BRUCE MUTUAL
INSURANCE COMPANY
Protecting farmers and
homeowners since 1878
517 -10th St.,
Hanover, Ontario N4N 1 R4
519-364-2250
Farm
Residential
Commercial
insh Automobile
howiCk MUTUAL INSURANCE
COMPANY
Wroxeter, Ontario
NOG 2X0
(519) 335-3561
CU1RrJSS MUTUAL IPISURA� IC_
CO/IA PAI
Y
ESTABLISHED 1871
• Farm • Auto
• Home • Commercial
Phone (519) 392-6260
Fax (519) 392-8177
P.O. Box 173, Clinton St.
Teeswater,- Ont. NOG 2S0
Serving our Community for more than 125 years
1
CRAIG, MCDONALD, REDDON
INSURANCE BROKERS LTD,
For All Your
Farm • Home • Auto
• Business
Insurance Requirements
Mildmay
(519) 367-2297
Walkerton
(519) 881-2701
Hanover
(519) 364-3540
Durham
(519) 369-2935
1-888-296-1367
130 John Street,
Atwood, Ontario NOG 'BO
Tel. (519) 356-2582
Fax (519) 356-2654
Insuring farms and families
in Midwestern Ontario for 116 years.
•
`lt Member of the ONTARIO MUTUAL INSURANCE ASSOCIATION
16 THE RURAL VOICE
farmers' actions in the context of
potential negligence.
"I think its clear that what
constitutes due diligence is
changing,", Vogel said. "Simple
compliance with regulatory
conditions isn't going to do it."
In future farmers may have to
prove that they have undergone site-
specific hydrogeological assessments
as to how their operations will affect
the water table, particularly in areas
where the aquifer is vulnerable,
Vogel says.
Hicks says it's important to point
out it has never been proven the E.
coli came from the Biesenthal farm
and neither the family or the
insurance company has accepted
liability through the settlement which
was negotiated by the province, and
insurance firms for the the
municipality of Brockton, the local
Public Utilities Commission, and the
local health unit as well as the
Biesenthals. That settlement not only
speeded up the process of bringing
assistance to the people of Walkerton
(normally a class action suit can take
seven or eight years to make its way
through the courts, Hicks says) and
therefore helped close the wounds
sooner, but it also headed off harmful
precedents.
While farm insurance companies
all across Canada probably breathed
a sigh of relief when the provincial
government's settlement offer
quashed the lawsuit, they probably
couldn't have hoped for a better test
case than the Biesenthals.
While media and environmental
critics kept talking about the dangers
of "industrial" agriculture during the
height of the media frenzy, the
Biesenthals were far from an
example of large scale agriculture.
As well, they had conducted an
Environmental Farm Plan early on,
making them also an ideal models for
the farm groups, from the
Cattlemen's Association to the
Ontario Farm Environmental
Coalition that stepped forward to
defend them. They were farmers who
had done the right things, like storing
manure on a cement pad with
edvestroughs positioned to direct
rainwater away from the barnyard.
But the other side of that
argument is just as frightening, says
Hicks. The Biesenthal's operation