The Oxford Coalition for…

The Oxford Coalition for Social Justice adds these comments to prior ones. Our organization advocates for planning that takes both land and watersheds into account and which results in environmental and human health. . It is not apparent in the proposal to dump excess soils into a lake within the quarry site that there has been appropriate assessment and measurement of the impacts on water quantity and quality, not only for drinking water needs in Caledon, but also for the maintenance of a healthy environment. Both are essential to human health. The quantity of soil is also variously stated as between 11 million and 15 million tonnes. Precision is to be expected.

The transport of large quantities of excess soil presents risks to others using Caledon's roads by way of accidents, leakage of dust and/or liquids from the trucks, and from the fine particulate matter emitted by diesel trucks.Studies by Dr. Ray Copes and Dr. Hong from the Dalla Lana School at the University of Toronto and others have concluded that there are direct impacts on the health of lungs, hearts and brains when fine particulate matter is present in the air. What has not been assessed in the submission is the impact of fine particulate matter and other emissions, from mufflers and/or dripping from vehicles, on watersheds. An analogy with the salinity of watersheds due to road salt in winter conditions, and the release of compounds from tires suggest that this is a considerable additional risk. Thirdly, physical impacts of overloaded dump trucks are not uncommon.

The loss of a lake which was part of a rehabilitation plan suggests that the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks has grounds under each of those parts of its mandate - environment, conservation, parks - to reject this plan to undo a rehabilitation in favour of excess soil dumping. The precedent set by this for the disturbance of features previously planned, approved and execute should lead every community to doubt the Ministry of Natural Resources resolve to cause final and integrative rehabilitation to happen in any instance. Further, the presence of a lake feature has psychological and economic value: Water features like Nature provide calm; the presence of water increases home values in almost all cases.

Further, the Ontario Headwaters Institutes invites the Ministry of Natural Resources to reject this plan while a whole-scale revision of planning decisions is undergone such that sustainable watersheds can be guaranteed as their result.