Food and Water First
Food Water FirstNDACT Chair, Cautious
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- Published on Wednesday, 21 November 2012 21:10
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Meanwhile, NDACT isn’t prepared to rest on its laurels. The group will continue to figure prominently into discussions with the province as it works to review the ARA and its provincial policy statement (PPS).
“Making sure that food and water remain first in politicians’ thinking, I don’t think that’s going to go away,” Cosack said. “Once the ARA protects prime agricultural food lands and source water regions from these types of development, we’re all going to go and return to our normal lives.”
During the last few years, NDACT has raised thousands of dollars in its fight against the proposed quarry, some of which include proceeds from several highly publicized events like Foodstock and Soupstock. NDACT hasn’t discussed what it intends to do with that money at this point.
For the moment, Cosack, and many quarry opponents across Ontario, is soaking in the good news. That doesn’t mean the fight is over yet.
“I do dear say I’m little cautious,” Cosack said. “As much as this is over, I think we really need to remember that two years from now, they can sell this to … anybody else, and start it all over again.”
Posted in "The Orangeville Banner", Nov. 21/12, by Bill Tremblay
Read more at : http://www.orangeville.com/news/local/article/1540679--highland-withdraws-melancthon-quarry-plans
Quarry Application Withdrawn - Newspaper Releases
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- Published on Wednesday, 21 November 2012 19:45
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November 21, 2012
Due to the many media reports about this great turn in events, we have chosen to post a few lines from each article and their links. Many of the articles are similar, as they are reporting on the same media release from Highland media representative, Lindsay Broadhead.
The Highland Companies, the company behind the controversial “mega quarry” project in Melancthon Township, just north of Orangeville, will abandon its quarry application, as well as efforts to restore a rail corridor through Dufferin County.
Read more at: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1290831---mega-quarry-proposal-dropped-in-dufferin-county
Posted in the "Toronto Star", Nov. 21/12
After more than 18 months of community and activist opposition, a company that bought up farmland in Melancthon Township announced Wednesday that it has shelved plans for a mega-quarry.
Read more at: http://www.torontosun.com/2012/11/21/company-abandons-controversial-southern-ontario-mega-quarry
Posted in the "Toronto Sun", by Ian Robertson, Nov. 21/12
The Highland Companies (Highland) announced on Nov. 21 that it is withdrawing its application to develop a quarry in Melancthon Township.
Posted in the "Wellington Advertiser", Nov. 21/12
Read more at: http://www.wellingtonadvertiser.com/index.cfm?page=detail&itmno=14577
The proposed quarry in Melancthon is dead.
Posted in the "Barrie Advance", Nov. 21/12
Read more at: http://www.simcoe.com/news/article/1540695--the-mega-quarry-is-dead
The company behind a mega quarry slated for prime Southern Ontario farmland has decided to abandon its proposal, which faced staunch opposition from many local farmers, environmentalists and high-profile Toronto chefs.
Read more at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/firm-abandons-plan-for-mega-quarry-north-of-toronto/article5520026/
Posted in the "Globe and Mail" by Renata D'Aliesio, Nov. 21/12
Controversial ‘mega quarry’ project in Ontario scrapped as company withdraws application.
Read more at: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/21/controversy-mega-quarry-project-in-ontario-scrapped-as-company-withdraws-application/
Posted in the "National Post", by Canadian Press, Nov. 21/12
Highlands drops the mega-quarry proposal...
Read more at: http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com/2012/11/21/highlands-drops-mega-quarry-proposal
Posted in the "Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin", by Emily Innes, Nov. 21/12
Theatre company, Rural Learning Association plan play on mega-quarry
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- Published on Thursday, 25 October 2012 21:03
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Everybody’s Theatre Company (ETC) and the Rural Learning Association (RLA) have launched a creative collaboration with local residents in the development of an all-inclusive, community-engaged outdoor mobile play exploring the many dimensions of the Melancthon Mega-quarry issue.
The research and development phase of this project will culminate with a staged reading of a draft script, an exhibition of design concept drawings, initial choreography and draft musical compositions. This first phase will provide the opportunity for feedback on the draft work and serve as outreach to the community in terms of wider participation in the full-scale production phase.
Between this month and September 2013, Eden Mills-based ETC will focus significant attention on the townships of Melancthon and Mulmur, basing itself at The Highland Learning Centre (home to RLA) in Honeywood. The staged reading will take place in the fall of 2013.
ETC and RLA, after assessing local interest, made funding applications to the Community Arts sections of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts (March 2012 deadlines). Both applications were successful. All bookkeeping and administration will be handled through ETC. Local fundraising will not be undertaken for this project.
Dale Hamilton, Artistic Director/Producer of ETC, will facilitate script development and will lead a team of three artists who live in the affected watersheds, along with three Native resource people, to undertake research & development specifically in terms of script, costume and prop design, musical composition and choreography.
Dale has over 25 years of experience in community-engaged arts and six-generationsdeep rural roots, including a term as a municipal councillor in Eramosa Township.
Other confirmed artists are James Gordon (music), Sandi Wong (design), Ayrlie MacEachern (dance) plus First Nations resource people Aiyyana Maracle, Del Ashkewe and John Somosi.
In keeping with the long-standing philosophy of ETC, participation will be all-inclusive and intergenerational. Although residents of Melancthon and Mulmur townships will be the focus, no one would be turned away, especially given the fact that the proposed mega-quarry would have an impact well beyond the immediate area. Attention will be given to encouraging broad-based participation, including First Nations people, local politicians, long-time residents, newcomers and part time residents. The project received a letter of interest from the North Dufferin Agricultural & Community Taskforce (NDACT), the organization at the forefront of the Mega-Quarry issue.
For details of ETC’s process and experience, go to an article by Dale Hamilton at www.communityengagedtheatre.ca
Specifics of the process for this particular project will be developed in consultation with a local broad-based steering committee that is presently being established. Given the highprofile and controversial nature of this issue, the play will not present one point of view, but will instead present different perspectives and provide an opportunity for creative exploration and relationship-building in the midst of a community in crisis.
Twenty five years of experience has clearly demonstrated that community-engaged theatre (such as is being proposed) can have a powerful impact on individuals and communities, particularly when facing a crisis, and can provide the conditions for meaningful and passionate conversations, thereby laying a stronger foundation for sustained concrete action.
Posted in the "Orangeville Citizen", October 25, 2012
Soupstock: Thousands gather at Woodbine Park to protest Melancthon mega-quarry
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- Published on Monday, 22 October 2012 15:37
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More than 200 chefs cooked up 12,000 pounds of local produce for Sunday’s event. Last year more than 28,000 made their way to a field 100 km north of Toronto for Foodstock.
This year organizers decided to host it closer to downtown.
“We need to connect people that live in the city with the food that feeds them,” said Jode Roberts, spokesperson for the David Suzuki Foundation, a co-host of the event along with chef Michael Stadtlander and the Canadian Chefs’ Congress.
“I’ve been advocating to everyone I know. We need to make people aware,” said Diana Mikas who just finished a bowl of chocolate soup. “It affects everybody, not just farmers. It’s integral to our survival.”
The quarry project first started raising eyebrows in 2006, when several farmers were approached with offers to buy their land north of Orangeville. In 2011, Highland Companies submitted a proposal for a quarry licence to the Ministry of Natural Resources and public opposition coalesced.
Opponents have been protesting ever since, expressing concern over the loss of farmland and potential damage to the water supply. The quarry is slated to be about 2,300 acres (930 hectares) — roughly a third of the size of downtown Toronto.
“We should all be concerned about our food sources and drinking water,” said Michael Lewis, a Parkdale resident enjoying some minestrone at Soupstock. “It seems like we have water everywhere — but we don’t.”
Chefs came from all across Canada and the U.S., with one coming from Boston, where the hedge fund financing the quarry project originates.
The movement against the quarry has spread through the city, with red-and-white signs protesting the development popping up in Toronto neighbourhoods. It’s attracted star power also — George Stroumboulopoulos and Our Lady Peace drummer Jeremy Taggart served as emcees for Soupstock.
In 2011, the government of Ontario launched an environmental assessment into the project — a first for an Ontario quarry. The assessment is expected to take several years.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1275056--soupstock-thousands-gather-at-woodbine-park-to-protest-melancthon-mega-quarry
Melancthon mega-quarry: It’s limestone vs. potatoes
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- Published on Friday, 19 October 2012 20:38
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A billion tonnes of limestone lie beneath the rural countryside in Melancthon township, 100 kilometres north of Toronto. A plan to remove it spotlights the challenges faced everywhere when the desire to protect valuable and ever-diminishing farmland clashes with efforts to push industrial development.
The Highland Companies, backed by a $25-billion Boston hedge fund, hopes to blast a big hole in this fertile land to get at a deposit of 400-million-year-old sedimentary rock. The pit would cover more than 930 hectares and be almost 20 storeys deep — the second-largest quarry operation in North America, and the largest in Canadian history.
According to the company’s proposal, moving this much rock will require 20,000 kilograms of explosives a day for the next few decades, and hundreds of trucks and heavy machines. The proposed quarry would be 200 feet below the water table — vertically deeper than Niagara Falls, and twice as wide.
For generations, local farmers have benefitted from the area’s unique, 10,000-year-old soil, called “Honeywood silt loam.” This Class 1 agricultural soil — the rarest in Canada — is not too sticky or sandy, holds moisture, drains well and is free of rocks. It’s perfect for potatoes. Area farms now harvest more than 450,000 kilograms of spuds each year, including about half the fresh potatoes consumed in the Greater Toronto Area.