The consensus of an overflow crowd at an open house in East Luther Grand Valley council chambers Tuesday night was that an ammonium nitrate facility in the township would be a potential hazard to both the Grand River and the local aquifer.

And more than one member of the audience questioned the integrity of proponent Orica Canada Inc., a company that supplies explosives to quarries in southwestern Ontario.

No sooner had Orica presenter Pierre Chauvan concluded his half-hour presentation than he found himself under siege.

Peter Turrell, a resident who lives on Orica's haul route, accused the presenter of being less than truthful in stating that the company had had no (road) accidents. "You wiped out two tractor trailers," he said. Another auditor said one of the accidents happened when a tractor trailer jack-knifed at the entrance to the Orica site as the entrance is poorly marked and unlighted.

Mr. Turrell also questioned Orica's statement that there is no manufacturing at the site, when the federal screening level Environmental Assessment (which only recently came to light) states that manufacturing is one of the functions.

Grand Valley resident Joan Pope was one of the more vocal in her opposition to the facility on the basis of "water concerns for the entire Grand River" which flows through urban centres into Lake Erie.

She said it's not just a local concern, but one that affects everyone who relies on the Grand. The water concerns, not limited to the river itself but including the Guelph- Amabel aquifer, were echoed by several auditors.

The Orica response was that the silos for ammonium nitrate storage are on concrete pads. A company representative said Orica was voluntarily building a berm surrounding the pad to contain any spills until the emergency response team could clean it up.

Most questioners did not identify themselves, including several who had sought answers to how local emergency services would handle a variety of situations - ranging from cleanup of spillage to the theft of explosives by terrorist groups.

Although Orica says it has an emergency response plan in place, one resident said she had found that Dufferin OPP was unaware of it. A member of the Grand Valley fire department said the volunteer members have never been trained to deal with ammonium nitrate.

"The local police don't know about it. The fire department has not been trained. You're in an isolated area and the police don't know about it. You've been there how long? And you're just going to get around to it sometime," said one resident.

Curiously, the federal Environmental Assessment did not find any aboriginal concerns although the site is in the disputed Haldimand Tract. Nor did it find a need for public consultation as it presumed there had been a prior EA and the explosives storage had been in place for more than a decade.

Mr. Turrell was among those who questioned the adequacy of the brief federal screening report - signed in May 2008 - without public consultation.

Among other questions, residents wondered about the legality of a building permit for a $2-million structure prior to permanent zoning and site-plan approval. In that respect, the application was filed when the East Luther Official Plan was still in effect but the OP amendment would be under the new ELGV OP.

Should the required OPA and zoning be refused by township council, asked a resident, would the township be on the hook for Orica's $2- million building cost that arose from the federal licence.