Nelson Quarry loses bid to expand on plateau

Singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer is applauding the Niagara Escarpment Commission decision to deny Nelson Quarry’s bid to expand on the Mount Nemo Plateau in north Burlington.

“I’m really excited,” Harmer said. “History’s been made today.”

She spoke out after the commission voted 14-1 yesterday to accept a staff recommendation to reject Nelson’s application for a Niagara Escarpment Plan amendment to allow 30 million more tonnes of limestone to be mined south of the existing quarry.

Speaking before the vote on behalf of PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land), Harmer told commissioners that stone through which groundwater flows to the many streams running from Mount Nemo to Lake Ontario “has been hauled away gravel truck by gravel truck for 50 years.”

“It can give no more,” she said.

The motion to deny came from Halton Regional Councillor Allan Elgar of Oakville and was seconded by Joan Little, a Spectator freelance columnist and former Burlington councillor, who noted this is one of the few times the commission finds itself aligned with every other agency involved — Halton, Burlington, Conservation Halton and even the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Nelson president Norm Elmhirst said he had no new comment after a string of rejections, except that “now it’s off to the joint board” — a panel of Environmental Review Tribunal and Ontario Municipal Board members who will hold a public hearing on the company’s appeal.

The commission also voted 14-1 to direct staff to look at putting the Nelson site and other natural land on Mount Nemo in the escarpment protection zone that would prevent quarrying.

PERL wants it done quickly to stop the public hearing before it starts.

Halton Region and the City of Burlington also are asking the province to act unilaterally to protect the quarry site and stop the hearing.

Brian Zeman, planner for Nelson, argued it’s most environmentally sound to quarry stone as close as possible to where it will be used in the Greater Toronto Area.

Commissioner Nars Borodczak of Oakville, former chief administrative officer of the NEC, said during debate on another quarry proposal that there’s no doubt southern Ontario needs construction aggregate.

But Borodczak added: “I’d like to leave the Niagara Escarpment as an area of last resort.

“If we’ve exhausted (other lands), then let’s consider the Niagara Escarpment. Until then, we should do everything in our power to protect the escarpment.”