For the record, there are a number of things that need to be clarified in what has become a battle between some Melancthonites and whomever else.

Wes Keller That battle has erupted on an unseemly number of fronts: potential quarry, woodlands, rail restoration, The Y (a.k.a.

YMCA), and – or all things – modern technology for waste disposal by converting it to energy, among other issues.

With the exception of rail and waste management, I have no opinion on these issues. My concern is that the antagonists have been spreading patently false information about the issues.

There are two biggies here: No. 1 is the myth that The Highland Companies would suddenly have a 2,400-acre quarry 200 feet deep. No. 2 is that there would be lengthy quarry trains running through Shelburne and Orangeville hourly.

Dealing with No. 1, Highland would first require zoning for aggregate extraction. It has not applied for such zoning of the proposed 2,400 acres or any portion thereof. Its open house last year presented

plan to move forward in blocks of 300 acres, at 50-acre increments. Its proposal appeared to be sufficiently innovative that it would have more than a little difficulty convincing the ministries the rehabilitation plans and water protection schemes are viable.

It might well be unfortunate that anyone would wish to dig below the water table in Melancthon. If so, we are faced with the sad truth of the existence of limestone that someone, some day, is bound to mine. If not Highland, it will be someone else – but it won’t be an overnight development of 2,400 acres of open pit.

On the rail, Canadian Pacific originally gave the corridor between Orangeville and Owen Sound to Trans Canada Trailways following its abandonment, after a protracted effort by most municipalities to keep the service in place. Trans Canada transferred ownership to the counties of Dufferin and Grey after deciding the corridor was of no use to it, more or less.

This transportation corridor is potentially crucial for to the long-term prosperity of every municipality it passes through. I don’t know how using it for the pleasures of riding gas-guzzling snowmobiles and ATVs is of a greater benefit than creating employment by having railway access for future industrial employment.

Opponents of the rail have consistently exaggerated the role it might play in quarry development. The multi-milliondollar investment in rail restoration would make no sense if the only shipper were to be a quarry. The conditional agreement between Highland and Orangeville calls for promotion of additional shippers. A Highland spokesman has said it would expect any quarry operation to become “one of” its customers.

If there ever is a quarry, and if it uses rail transport, any suggestion of 40 cars per train hourly is so outlandish it shouldn’t be dignified with comment – especially when the suggestion is one of those every hour. The last website I checked showed mining trains as averaging four, not 40, cars in length.

On waste management, it is interesting to note that the Westinghouse technology proposed for Dufferin has been operating successfully for years in Japan, and has been selected by Air Products to build a 49-megawatt renewable energy plant in Tees Valley at the Reclamation Pond site near Billingham, U.K.

Yet we have at least one Melancthon resident, claiming to be a researching expert, equating some failed plants that had other-than-Westinghouse technology to suggest the Dufferin Eco Energy Park isn’t going to work. Does a B.A. with biology major out-qualify scientists who have approved the technology for major installations?

And then we have another who rails about the weighted county vote and says

should Dufferin be given waste management powers — Orangeville would use the existing four locally owned landfill sites by power of its vote, should the DEEP project not go ahead.

There are two things wrong with the argument. First, the county would not gain ownership of the four dumps; secondly, the Certificates of Approval for the dumps specify that garbage cannot be imported – not even from other Dufferin municipalities.

I cannot comment on the value of the YMCA in this area, except to say that it

a great organization. I do trust the local politicians who appear to have decided we are better off with its presence than without it.

There are two things about all of this. First of all, the greatest of all news values

“disruption of the status quo.” Hardly anyone wants anything to change.

But the greatest truth probably is that

the only constant is change.”

If we don’t like the changes that are being foisted upon us, let us oppose with honesty and not use untruths and fearmongering as one of our weapons.