By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 11. 2012 This date will go down as a major victory for the city of Burlington and an example of what a determined group of citizens can accomplish when they put their minds to it.
There will be no expansion to the Nelson Quarry on Guelph Line.
The Ontario Municipal Board released a decision earlier today that the Nelson application for a quarry expansion has been dismissed!
This is the last quarry we will see on Mt. Nemo. The application to expand this quarry was dismissed earlier today by the Ontario Municipal Board.
Details are a little sparse at the moment – they will come out in the days ahead. Right now it is time to take stock and realize that good ideas put forward by well researched community organizations can prevail.
Elaine LaChapelle of PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Lands) was stunned when she was given the news by telephone. She logged into the PERL email lists and there is was – loads of detail.
Roger Goulet, President of PERL advises that Sara Harmer and her Mother along with Dan Lions were the people who were at the bedside when PERL was born seven and a half years ago.
They slogged every month since then and raised money through concerts, garage sales, entertainment events – the only thing they apparently didn’t do was hold car washes.
The expenses is in the hundreds of thousands – let me say that again – the hundreds of thousands, a large part of which has yet to be paid. There has to be a massive community benefit to erase this debt.
Much more to tell but for the moment – savour a great day for Burlington and the Halton Region and an even greater day for the environment.
CONGRATULATIONS to all who fought so diligently to preserve the beautiful natural sanctuary of Mount Nemo.
My only wish is that there had been a similar citizen ‘outcry’ when City, in the midst of their PanAm fever, decided to carpet the Living Earth at the largest park in Burlington with plastic grass at City View Park, found at Kerns Road & Dundas Street.
To this day a PROPER Environmental Impact Assessment has NOT been done. How could it be when the Report was filed 6 months BEFORE the component parts of ‘plastic grass’ were even identified at the Hearing on October 5th, 2010-??
This one will haunt us for years to come. Million dollar plastic grass carpets EXPIRE after 5-10 years. They are ripped up, sent to a TOXIC dump (by LAW), and replaced with new toxic ‘rubber & plastic’ carpets. Children are then forced to play on this lifeless crud even when it reaches temperatures 40 degress above ambient temperature. Yes, you got that right. When it’s 80 degrees F, the carpets can be as HOT at 120 degrees F – or more!
Personally, I continue to believe that it is shameful, near criminal, that this once vibrant and natural living space, (considered a part of a UNESCO Biosphere), has been ‘neutered’ in this way. Burlington is the FIRST internationally to have ‘plastic grass’ recognized within a biosphere. It’s not a good precedent!
This is not the way to teach our children about the VALUE of the Natural World that, in more ways then one, sustain us all daily.
Sorry, bit of a rant, but it is very IMPORTANT to be prepared for the time when the first batch of ‘fake grass’ has to be REPLACED at City View Park at taxpayers expense. That’s coming FOR SURE after the Pan Am Games in 2015. We don’t want it, just like we didn’t want the quarry at Mount Nemo.
We really must protect what we’ve got – before ‘they’ pave Paradise with yet another sterile parking lot ….