EARTH HOUR, IN DUFFERIN and internationally, should have served to place politicians at all levels on notice that the public is prepared to sacrifice in the interests of saving the planet.

Granted, a single hour of darkness isn't much of a sacrifice - especially when you consider that furnaces and refrigerators would have kept on consuming energy during Earth Hour - but it was a demonstration of public determination, and the message is well worth heeding.

In our opinion, a well-informed public would be just as determined to protect fresh water resources as it is to avoid the causes of global warming. And that public would know that water contamination from landfill sites is truly a source of present or future freshwater contamination.

At this moment, here in Dufferin County, we have four old-style dumps, at least one of which is percolating, or about to percolate, a leachate plume beyond its boundaries. At the same time, the four municipal councils involved are jealously guarding the dumps as valuable assets.

Meantime, a committee of county council is having difficulty establishing what kind of tipping fee it would pay to dispose of household hazardous waste at a non-polluting thermaltreatment plant proposed for the Dufferin Eco- Energy Park.

Prospective proponents - who would design, build, own and operate such a plant at no capital cost to the county - are asking, principally among other things, how much per tonne they could charge local users for disposal, and whether or not they could negotiate with the county rather than with eight individual municipalities.

Those questions should be relatively easy to resolve and to answer.

With respect to Earth Hour, the public enjoying life in the dark demonstrated because they were aware that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels is a cause of global warming. Their message, as we see it, was that they would sacrifice to reduce the use of such fuels in electrical generating plants.

We believe the same public would be willing to sacrifice a little to avoid contaminating the aquifer by continuing to bury garbage where it will continue to contaminate.

Simply stated, the environmentally and ecologically conscious public has demonstrated that it does have an environmental and ecological conscience.

Our politicians should act accordingly.