I am a Process Development…

I am a Process Development Technician with a degree in Chemistry from the Univerity of Guelph, working for Lanxess Canada since 2013 at its Elmira location. As is widely known, Elmira has been unable to drink its aquifer since 1992 because of my site's past practices. Water I help to treat as part of a multi-disciplinary team every day.

Green belts serve to naturally purify air and drinking sources. They provide critical habitat spaces (e.g. Nightjars) and improve mental health by preventing the claustrophobic feel of high-density housing. They also serve as buffer zones.

It's bad enough that I would never recommend canoeing in the creek behind my manufacturing site, originally built in 1908. Aside from the smell, imagine the same situation but on today's production scale, and instead of unclaimed land behind it until the horizon, there are crops or a public school.

Let's imagine another situation where there is no manufacturing hazard but just endless rows of suburbs. What is the plan during a drought season like what Europe is facing?

Also, the difference between urbanization and a green belt is the former can't be rezoned. Once it's been paved and stripped of its precious resources, it takes more than thirty years and the work of countless professionals to attempt to get it back to where it was. Versus a green belt that can be a farm, a baseball diamond, a campsite, or a conservation area interchangeably.

Therefore, I encourage the community to reject this zoning proposal in order to preserve green belts for people like my nephew and the many other generations to come.