Will Highland now lower its sights?

IF THERE EVER WAS ANY DOUBT about it, the capacity crowd in Honeywood ought surely to have demonstrated the strong opposition of Melancthon residents to plans by The Highland Companies to turn 2,400 acres of prime farmland into a huge quarry.

The standing-room-only crowd on the ice surface was told the battle Highland will face will be mostly about water. The company contends that it can excavate limestone to depth, according to charts, of about 200 feet without any adverse affect on water, and can somehow rehabilitate the excavations progressively to some form of agricultural use.

It has yet to file a formal application for such a quarry, and Melancthon council has hesitated to make any moves on an application it has yet to see.

Although provincial laws and policies would seem to give aggregate extraction a higher priority than preservation of good agricultural land, we think Highland would be well-advised to reconsider seeking approval for such a mega-quarry.

In fact, even the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Taskforce

NDACT) might welcome a change of course under which Highland would merely seek approval for a small-scale pilot project – a deep quarry of perhaps 100 acres that would establish whether, in fact, aquifers could be preserved and the site returned to farmland in relatively short order.