The environmental and engineering consultant to NDACT has filed a supplement to his original response to The Highland Companies’ application for the Melancthon mega-quarry, and his office has completed a three-decade review of water pumping at Holland Marsh.

Garry Hunter of Hunter & Associates is in agreement with Highland spokesperson Lindsay Broadhead’s assertion that the 600,000 cubic metre (CM) daily water management estimate doesn’t reach that peak until excavation of the fourth area of the quarry has begun.

However, he says a comparison of that with the water volume managed at the Marsh is incorrect.

“A conducted field visit and personal communication with the current and prior Holland Marsh Drainage Superintendents confirms that there are only three pumping stations in the Holland Marsh,” he says in his letter to the ministry.

Although the combined design capacity of the three stations is 595,720 CM daily, Mr. Hunter, following 10 days of interviews, studies and compiling, says, “the average pumping required to drain the 7,000-acre Holland Marsh interior over the past three decades is only 600,000 cubic meters per year or about 16,500 cubic meters per day.

“The average 16,500 cubic meters discharge per day at Holland Marsh is pumped eight feet in height whereas the Highland Companies propose to pump 600,000 cubic meters per day an average height of about 200 feet on a perpetual basis when the quarry is at full depth in the four operating cells. Highlands pumping comparison appears to have little merit,” he says.

“I also note that The Highland Companies groundwater modeling methodology — and by inference the estimated 600,000 cubic meters per day recirculation — has been seriously challenged by the MOE, GRCA, Emil Frind, Distinguished Professor Emeritus University of Waterloo, and Dr. Ken Howard of the University of Toronto as well as myself.”

Mr. Hunter said he has yet to hear “any technical comments from the Township or the NVCA (Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority).”

The annual costs of perpetual water management have been of concern to NDACT, which has often asked who would be responsible for perpetual payment once the proposed quarry’s 150-million tons have been extracted.

Mr. Hunter says the costs of maintaining the Marsh system is $200,000 annually.

He says Highland in its application “has incorrectly characterized the Holland Marsh pumping systems and its comparison to the proposed Melancthon Quarry pumping systems. The scale is significantly different.”

His supplementary report also explores the traffic component, and calculates the passenger car equivalent of the estimated number of trucks.

“The predicted peak shipping truck traffic is 326 inbound and 326 outbound or 652 hourly bidirectional pass- by 45 tonne payload trucks.

“Corresponding peak aggregate shipped is 14,670 tonnes/hr or a peaking factor of about 1.5 times the maximum RWDI (engineers Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin) specified aggregate production rate.

“This truck traffic does not include importing of secondary materials from other pits and quarries and incidental quarry traffic.

“Assuming a passenger car equivalency factor of 3.0 passenger cars/truck (pg 18, Morrison Hershfield Limited, Jan 2011) and making allowance for incidental quarry traffic, the total equivalent vehicle quarry traffic is estimated at a peak of approximately 1,000 vehicles/hr each way.”

In his conclusion, Mr. Hunter says, “if the quarry is to proceed as proposed by the Applicant, then new highways will be required linking Highways 10, 89 and 124 across the north of the Town of Shelburne. This highway should be a provincial highway with direct quarry access.

“Expansion of Highway 10 to a five lane section from Primrose to Camilla and improvements further south on Highway 10 may also be required,” Mr. Hunter concludes.