A group of demonstrators hoping to bring public awareness to issues around aggregate mining and water quality concerns, stopped in Acton on Wednesday. The noon stop-over at the parkette at Main and Mill Streets was part of a longer ‘Gravel Walk’ that the group made that day. Seven demonstrators and a dog made the trek that began at the Dufferin Quarry south of town and terminated in Rockwood later in the day.
Shane Philips, carrying a sign that said ,’Make Mother Earth Happy—Say No to a Quarry’ explained the reason for the march: “We're trying to bring awareness to the people of Acton, to the people of Rockwood, and more broadly to the people of Ontario, that these open pit mines are not only destroying the landscape, but more importantly, destroying our ground water. These kind of open pits are one of the most dangerous things we could be doing to our groundwater and they are still issuing licences for no reason. We don't need another Walkerton crisis.”
Doug Tripp, president of the Concerned Residents Coalition (CRC) was one of the speakers. The CRC spent eight years and $800,000 opposing the application by James Dick Construction Ltd., to open Hidden Quarry, located near Hwy 7 just east of Rockwood. The application was approved by the provincial Local Planning and Appeals Tribunal in February 2020.
“This is an industry that's not subject to any control, it's kind of a wild west, everyone's out to improve their competitive position,” said Tripp. “The consequence is this huge proliferation of pits and quarries around the province. There are 6,000 licences for pits and quarries in the province right now, we estimate two or three thousand of them are sitting idle. Case in point is the very large Acton Quarry which seems to have been mothballed for the last three years.
“It's an unmanaged industry that gets a free ride when it comes to requirements that apply to hard rock mining. It's an open pit mine, they blast, same as hard rock mining but they have a different set of rules, which are very lax. We're here to highlight the connection between a huge quarry that is sitting idle and a new quarry up the road [Hidden Quarry] that they're waiting to blast, and that makes no sense to us at all.”
Halton Hills Mayor Rick Bonnette was asked to comment on the demonstration. “I admire that they were able to come down here and make some noise. Five municipal governments were adamantly opposed to this [Hidden Quarry approval]. This will be devastating to the Town of Acton because we'll be averaging about 50 trucks per hour for a very long time, once they get all their permits etc. And we will not be getting one nickel of assessment or anything from that quarry. We don't even have a say about a truck route.”
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