'I hope we see a groundswell of outraged opposition'

I attended the Highland Companies open house this past weekend in Horning's Mills. There, the company was going to reveal a little more of their grand "vision" for Melancthon Township.

This numbered company, with undisclosed investors in Canada and the U.S., want to turn 2,400 acres of prime potato land into a 150 foot (plus/minus) hole in the ground. Absolutely outrageous!!!

The quarry bottom will be well below the water table, and will cause a massive drawdown in the water table. The water that is there now, and all of the water that will flow into this drain from underground and from rain and snow will have to be pumped out of the hole in perpetuity unless this it is to become a lake. They say they have a plan to deal with this "problem" and that we will have "Bottom Line: No adverse effects on water."

They say they can put agricultural uses back into the bottom of the hole, and that all they are doing is "reshaping the land." How preposterous and how ridiculous!

Show us examples of where something of this scale has worked. I don't think they can. How long until some of the land is returned to "agricultural use?" According to one of their consultants at the meeting, it will be between eight and 10 years until some (how much?) of the first diggings at the bottom of the hole is ready for some kind of agriculture.

But, he cautions, it could be longer if the economy is slow, or the demand for aggregate slows, or if the land, due to unfavourable weather conditions, does not rehabilitate according to their plan, maybe up to 15 years, he says. And what happens to the mess they leave behind when they are finished in 20 or 30 years?

There are more unanswerable questions here than there are questionable answers to this massive experiment they want to force on our residents, on our landscape and our way of life.

These are investors living far away from here who only want to maximize their returns, and they have little or no interest in the true well-being of our community.

The salesmanship of their "vision", and their efforts at integrating into and "caring" for our community are a blatant appeasement. I don't buy it for a second, but I think, unfortunately too many people will, right up to the those who have the power to allow this travesty, this outrage to occur.

I hope we see a groundswell of outraged opposition to this insane plan that expands well beyond the local area, as this is truly a matter of provincial concern.

There are many that give up and say that "you can't stop progress," and that the economic growth is needed and good.

Progress and growth at what price? Sometimes we as a society and stewards of this land have to realize that what we have right here, right now is good and great, and that it does not need to be changed.

Dennis Sanford

Melancthon