IF ANYTHING, TED OLDFIELD'S prediction that the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Taskforce (NDACT) will have to raise a quarter-million dollars if it wants to fight plans for a major limestone quarry is unduly conservative.

Without a doubt, the stakes in such a battle will be high and there's no assurance that a campaign against the plans of The Highland Companies would be successful.

Clearly, the days when quarries in Dufferin and Caledon were an acceptable landscape feature are long gone.

Despite the fact Orangeville once had a quarry operation big enough to justify a rail line to the site north of Mono's 5 Sideroad and Shelburne's was the source of the splendid exterior of the former post office on Owen Sound Street, quarries today are seen as an unmixed curse.

In the circumstances, perhaps the best course for NDACT will be to strive for a compromise under which Highland will be barred from having an operation that occupies more than 100 of its 6,000 acres and is encouraged to move the aggregates by rail, not trucks on County 124.