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Times Advocate, 1993-02-17, Page 2I _,fie 2 te, February 17, 1993 e heading ' =ditimitite1" solutions at farm rally LUCKNOW - The Line in the Dirt (LID) rally On February 4 drew approximately 1,000 farm- ers and agri-related business people who listened to a panel of politicians, LID members and various farm board representa- tives. After three hours, talks ceased with no rytajor accomplishments. According to the Goderich Sig- nal -Star, the bottom line is that there is no money in thegovern- ment coffers to distribute to farmers who face a serious cash flow shortage due to depressed commodity prices and the recent disastrous growing and harvest seasons. "The only way to attempt to redress the misfortunes of 1992 is an immediate cash infusion from the government—federal and provincial—directly into the hands of the producer," said LID's Paul Frayne. According to Cornwall MPP, Noble Villeneuve, who is also the agriculture critic for the pro- vincial Progressive Conserva- tives, it costs more to run the jails of Ontario than the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is pro- vided to operate its budget to support the foaddoy in On- tario. New sewage plant plan FOREST - Forest is moving ahead with the design of a new sewage plant despite the Minis- try of the Environment's recent indication that the town has been moved well down the priority list. According 'to the Forest Stan- dard, town representatives met recently with ministry officials to seek answers to the process of building a new:plant.. Those an, swers are important since .the minstry's own calculation of the present plant's life span was in- accurate. The ministry over- estimated outflows from the plant by up to 25 percent which means the urgency, from a. ca- pacity standpoint has dropped significantly. Mayer Gord Minielly said that the town was encouraged finan- cially to proceed with a design for the sewage plant even though the town's need is much lest than thought. Costly landfill site BRUSSELS - The cost of drilling test holes to monitor the Morris Township landfill site could mean a charge of up $100 for each Brussels home -owner. According to the North Huron Citizen, the Ministry of the Envi- ronment has advised Morris Township that the test wells must be drilled , a move that could increase Brussel's share of the landfill cost to S58,000 extra this year from $22,000 last year even, though Morris has reduced Brussel's share to 50 percent from 60 percent. "I don't know where you're go- ing to get the money other than from the people. I don't know whether its better dealing with it and getting it over or dragging it on," said Donna White, clerk - treasurer at the Brussels council meeting on February 4. Ace goalie dies AYLMER - The 20 -year-old goalie of the Aylmer Aces West- ern Jr. B hockey team died dur- ing the team's practice last Tues- day evening. According to the Journal Ar- gus, Joe Puhr had just skated onto the ice and was preparing for practice when he collapsed. CPR was applied for 12 minutes but efforts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at St. Thomas General Hospital. Assistant coach Jerry Seguin said that Puhr played close to 95 percent of the their games. "Playing that much, he was in good shape. That's what I would assume. It's just very un- fortunate," vont a'alrnpIuastltjg qui tear to • ,-001111114111011,10900100S. Grand Bend Carnival Continued from front page legrini, Ron Rodenhuis, and Mike Somerville of the Sarnia area. The People's Choice award went to the Grand Bend team of Jackie Shute, Steve Shute, and Barb Schottroff for their sculpture of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. Winners of the Chili Cook -off were Finnegans in the commercial category, and Wendy Heywood as an individual. People's choice awards went to Benders and a Goderich team whose names wer- en't available at press time. The Winter Carnival committee are still busy -trying to wrap up the 1993 event, making sure all materi- als return from whence they came, and all bills get paid. They don't have much time; the 1994 Carnival is less than 12 months away. Citizens criticize user pay garbage plan Continued from front page high school that "the problem with our time is the future is not what it used to be". He said that sounds dismal, but he tries to remain optimistic. • There are thousands of ways we can change our behaviour "so the future can be something we can look forward to". McEwan said some Exeter fami- lies are already throwing out a bag of garbage a week or less by con- sciously deciding what to buy, re- cycle and compost. He 'said some town programs de- serve criticism for encouraging waste. He said the monthly large waste collections means some peo- ple actually go around looking for Zurich parents, coaches demand arena smoking restrictions Continued from front page. there," he said, adding that the low ceiling and poor ventilation aggra- vates the problem. "That closed in area is bad," agreed another delegate. "It ;just gets blue in there sometimes." He also argued seniors, who of- ten have respiratory problems, take refuge from the cold iaabe,glassed in area and might appreciate i& be- ing smoke-free. One man told council some hock- ey coaches smoke in the dressing rooms in front of the team. He said the association wanted to see smoke free dressing rooms, but on this point council remained firm and said such a policy was not en- forceable by the village, but was best handled by the association. The argument also arose that smoking in the stands might be un- safe due to the wooden structure. "Does your insurance company say people can smoke in those stands?" was asked of council. "They haven't said you can't," re- plied Fisher, but later commented that at one time there was a smok- ing ban in the stands for that very reason. Councillor Barb Jeffrey, in the position of being both chairman of the recreation board and president of the Zurich Minor Athletic Asso- ciation, said she agreed that the as- sociation should police its own coaches in the dressing rooms, but added she too felt the warm room area should be smoke free. "If you want to smoke you can go [into the stands)," she said. "There is fresh air out on the ice surface." Councillor Marg Deichert re- mained the most -opposed to any kind of smoking restrictions. She argued that making the arena smoke free would cause problems for the Bean Festival, the Fair, and ball tournaments that rent out the ice surface in the off season. She asked how it could be fair to ban smoking in the arena, but not in the auditorium. Cheryl Feagan from the Huron County Health Unit posed an inter- esting question to council. Since Correction: council voted against stipend raise As reported in last week's paper, Usborne Township council ap- proved a 260 per hour pay increase for municipal staff. However, it was incorrectly reported that coun- cil awarded themselves a two per- cent stipend increase. While the motion for the stipend increase was brought before coun- cil, it failed to pass the vote. The Times .Advocate regrets the error. .pouncil agreed the arena was a mu- nicipal workplace, she asked why it did not have a designated smoking area that was no more than 25 per- cent of the building area? "A lot of places couldn't comply with the ventilation requirements, and so went smoke free," comment- ed Feagan. Council did sot respond to that :question. Later after the delegation left, council agreed that some action should be taken. "These people want to see it now, not a month from now," said Jef- frey, noting the minor hockey sea- son would soon be over. Laporte agreed that a decision should be made that night, and argued the glassed -in warm room should be smoke free. "I agree behind the glass should be -non-smoking. It's a closed -off area and there's nowhere for the smoke to go. If there's anywhere in The arena to be non-smoking, it should be there," he said. Laporte suggested eventually the entire arena could be phased into a smoke-free building. "It didn't work in Blyth," retorted Deichert, referring to the recent de- cision to restore smoking in that village's arena. Eventually, council voted to post the warm room as smoke free. Deichert insisted on a recorded vote and registered the only objec- tion. "I'm an )ex-smoker, and I still want my smokers rights," she joked. things to throw away. "If we are allowed to be waste- ful, we probably will be because it's human nature," said McEwan. Dave Wilson from Bluewater Recyling agreed that if certain kinds of waste are to be banned from the Exeter landfill, then someone must offer an alternative to dispose of them. He said pilot projects for the collection and recy- cling of cardboard and boxboard have gone well in three municipali- ties, and all Bluewater members will enjoy the full service by April. Rick Hundey, town administra- tor, said that the waste manage- ment plan was "tossed and turned about for several months...it comes down to voluntary versus mandato- ry." He said all came to the conclu- sion that a system is needed that provides an incentive to reduce the cost of disposing of waste. Hundey reminded the audience that the town landfill's first phase was already at capacity. If the sec- ond phase is to be opened, it will cost about $20,000 for hydrogeo- logical studies, the funds for which the town hopes there will be pro- vincial grants. Huntley said the main focus of the user pay system, including the $2 bag tags, was to give credit to those who make the effort to reduce waste. debated by council "It's not fair to expect everyone to voluntarily reduce waste...in fact those . who .do .reduce, subsididi vEXEThR The outcome of last he is still opposed to the user -pay those who do not," said Hut-Alenaday's public meeting on the concept. the -present system. _;'';alum management plan for the Other ideas considered'by-coun- , As for the new plan, the adminis- -town' is not yet known. Council are cil were "garbage police" to track stili mulling over what direction the down those who throw out bags overall program will take, given the without the tags, a ban on garbure- kind of response from the public. tors to prevent citizens from wash - At Monday's council meeting, ing their garbage down the drain, a council members went over a 17- proposal to require apartment build - question checklist to Dement their ings to provide composters, a ban reasoning behind the waste man- on out-of-town garbage arriving at agement plan. Some of the ques- the landfill, and a need to find a tions revealed a divided council. way to not penalize those who are While some councillors still be- physically unable to carry a full lieve the $2 per tag garbage collec- garbage bag to the curb. tion program is the best way to pro- The public works committee will vide an incentive to reduce waste, be getting the first crack at finaliz- at least two councillors favour giv- ing the policies, and -a more clear- ing away the first 52 tags free. cut proposal should be available at Councillor Ben Hoogenboom said the next council meeting. she puts out one bag a week in front of her Main St. house and there are four or five bags there by morning. "I don't know where it comes from," she said. "Maybe it comes from Grand Bend," commented a man. Another resident said the $2 tag may not be fair to some senior citi- zens who can't lift a bag filled to capacity. He said his neighbour typically carries three half-filled bags to the curb. . Jim Darling, operator of Darlings Food Market, agreed there was al- ready a problem with misdirected garbage. He said his store's dumpster al- ways gets garbage "dumped from elsewhere in town because they know we'll get rid of it." "They're going to say 'I can't pay $4 for garbage this week, I'm going to dump it'," predicted Darling, who also claimed virtually truck- loads of garbage are by roadways in the Hay Swamp because resi- dents found the landfill closed. He said many residents don't have the same level of responsibili- ty council is expecting of them. "I think we're heading for disas- ter, absolutely," said Darling. Another man agreed, saying while most will pay the $2 for tags, others will avoid theisystem and ex- pect others to "pick up the cost". With that came a suggestion that council abandon the $2 tags and in- stead allow a maximum number of bags to be set at the curb, as, has Bayfield. A woman said she wanted to be sure that council's rebate on gar- bage collection would reflect the percentage of taxes paid. House- holds with high assessments should get a larger rebate, she said. This will be a point of contention since some others have argued that the rebate should not reflect assess- ment, but be offered equally to all ratepayers and apartment tenants. First 52 tags free? Final waste policy is still being trator said the waste committee and councils are sure its principles are sound, but will likely need some fine tuning before the July 1 intro- duction. • In response to a question from the audience, Hundey said other Ontario municipalities using a $2 bag tag system include Ganna- noque, Palmerston, and Grand Bend, but there are others. One man asked what would hap- pen if a neighbour put an untagged bag with someone else's garbage - would it be picked up? "The bag will be left there, and people know who's left what out and people will have to work it out in the neighbourhood," said Hun- dey, to which many responded.an- grily. One man said such a policy would "pit neighbour against neigh- bour". One woman said she already has garbage arriving at her curbside from unknown sources. She said PUBLIC NOTICE HEAVY EQUIPMENT REGISTRATION The Ministry of Natural Resources is inviting owners to register their heavy equipment for hire or rent at Pinery and Ipperwash Provincial Parks from April 1, 1993 to March 31, 1994. Registration forms may be obtained from: Ministry of Natural Resources Pinery Provincial Park R.R. #2 • Grand Bend, Ontario .:1f4OM 1 TO Tel.: (619) 243-2220 Registration forms are available Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, please contact Ken Armstrong at the above address. Ontari 0 Breeze through Summer in the most comfortable place you know. Soon, Summer will be cranking up the heat. 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