Community group brings Sarah Harmer back to her home town to once again protect the environment.

News 100 greenBy Staff

November 14, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

 

They are bringing in the big guns.

Sarah Harmer smile

Sarah Harmer, will speak at the Tyandaga Environmental Coalition public meeting.

Juno award winning singer, songwriter and conservation activist, Sarah Harmer, will speak at the Tyandaga Environmental Coalition public meeting on November 16, 2017 in Burlington, Ontario.

Harmer will join a group of environmental experts and advocates to raise public awareness of the scheduled deforestation of northwest Burlington by Meridian Brick.

An estimated 9,000 trees are scheduled to be clear cut for an urban quarry that mines shale for brick production. The threatened area contains about 35 acres prime forest, habitat to a number of at-risk and endangered species, including an endangered Jefferson dependant unisexual salamander that was discovered in the spring.

Meridian Brick is expanding its quarry under an aggregate license that was issued in 1972. The proposed quarry expansion would now come as close as 35m to homes in the Tyandaga neighborhood, threatening the health and well-being of the community.

werv

PERL took years and a lot of local fund raising to get to the point where a Joint Tribunal ruled that the application for a quarry expansion was to be denied because of the endangered species on the property. The upper orange outline is the existing quarry – the lower outline is where the expansion was to take place.

Sarah Harmer co-founder of the conservation organization PERL (Protect Escarpment Rural Land) that helped stop an 82-hectare aggregate quarry on the Niagara Escarpment at Mt. Nemo north of Burlington. She continues to raise awareness of the environmental impact of aggregate mining.

Harmer will join a list of environmental experts that includes Gord Miller, former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, David Donnelly, environmental lawyer and former Director of the Canadian Environmental Defense, Dr. Lynda Lukasik, environmental advocate for sustainable community development and the Executive Director at Environment Hamilton, and Roger Goulet, Executive Director for PERL.

The Tyandaga Environmental Coalition (TEC) is a group of concerned citizens fighting to save Burlington’s greenspace and protect the health and wellbeing of the city’s residents. Once a small group of like-minded-neighbors that came together when quarry expansion was announced, the environmental coalition now has nearly 3,000 supporters that are helping to petition the Honourable Kathryn McGarry (Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry) and the Honourable Chris Ballard (Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Change).

Three-quarry-sites

The west and centre quarries are nearing the end of life and the company wants to now quarry in the eatern section that is metres away from private homes.

TEC is requesting that the proposed urban quarry extension have an immediate independent evaluation of the impact on the community based on the current demography and updated environmental and health standards. Also needed are further studies of how clear cutting an estimated 35 acres of forested habitat will affect endangered species. These studies need to be viewed from the perspective of current environmental law.

The meeting will be held on November16, 2017, 7:00 pm at the Crossroads Centre located at 1295 North Service Road, Burlington

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