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‘Stop the destruction’

April 30, 2014   ·   0 Comments

It has come to the attention of many citizens of north Mono that a local family company is working to acquire a parcel of land on 30 Sideroad in Mono, with several pieces of land already having been purchased.

The citizens of the community surrounding the acquired property are very concerned that the land is being purchased with the plan to open a large aggregate mining operation.

Currently, a group of local citizens is beginning to work on doing everything in its power to stop this plan, if in fact an aggregate operation is the goal of the acquirers.

Mono is already the host to many aggregate operations. The fact that this type of development can take place in a community that is strongly committed to preserving the rural nature of the Town, reflects the imbalance of the Provincial Government policy which strongly favours the aggregate industry and facilitates the opening of aggregate operations all over our community. And as with the building of wind turbines, the Government policy and legal context leaves very little opportunity for effective input from the local communities impacted by these operations.

Our group of citizens is going to address  Mono Town Council about this issue in the hopes of enlisting the Council’s full support for all possible efforts being made to stop this development. With the municipal elections coming in October of this year, we will be canvassing all local candidates to ensure that the new Council supports citizen efforts to stop the destruction of good farmland and water resources that inevitably accompany aggregate mines.

Unfortunately, under the current legal structure, it is likely that this proposal is only one of many that we will see all over Dufferin County. Companies have seen our area as profitable “easy marks” for aggregate development. Much of Mono, and many other parts of Dufferin County, sit atop very valuable aggregate, and if we are to stop the ongoing conversion of more and more of our land to mining operations we have to draw the line now and push politicians at all levels to put an end to the current destructive policy.

We have seen with the success in stopping the Melancthon mega-quarry that citizens with passion and strong organization can succeed against the big companies.

We hope that we are wrong about the planned use of the land in our community for an aggregate mine, and we invite the company involved to announce that this is not their plan. In the meantime, we are going to work with energy and passion, and hopefully with the full support of our local Council, to stop aggregate development in our tranquil rural community. This will be our local effort to support both our community and to reinforce the strong efforts being made at the Provincial level to restore community input into the process of approving aggregate mining.

Rosemarie Eger and other concerned citizens of Mono and Mulmur

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