Re: Nelson Aggregate revises quarry proposal, Burlington Post, May 6, 2010.

Juno Award-winning singer Sarah Harmer objects to our application to extend the existing Burlington quarry because she’s “skeptical” about our rehabilitation plans, she’s “unimpressed” by our reduced extraction footprint and she feels the project “doesn’t put our minds at ease.”

Quite simply, Ms. Harmer would rather the quarry not be in her backyard, even though the existing operations have been a fixture of the area for more than half a century.

How she and the group she co-founded, Protecting Escarpment Rural Lands (PERL), feel about the proposal is one thing, but it’s another thing to make unsubstantiated claims and then ask government agencies to base their decisions on these assertions and allegations.

Let’s look at the facts. Our application protects all important natural heritage areas as confirmed by the Ministry of Natural Resources, including provincially-significant wetlands and Jefferson salamander habitats. We are very familiar with the bedrock geology and groundwater supplies in the area, through operating the Burlington quarry since 1953, and private wells will be fully protected.

Our land rehabilitation record is exemplary. At the Burlington quarry, more than three-quarters of the quarry faces and half the floor have now been rehabilitated. Numerous school groups tour the quarry each year, and I extend an invitation to Ms. Harmer to visit as well.

We are also active in other conservation initiatives — we’re working on pollinator (bee) research with Guelph University scientists, we’re assisting nature conservancy in the restoration of tall grass savannahs at our Cambridge operation, and we have been awarded Species at Risk Stewardship funding for the study of endangered species at our operation near Hagersville.

Aggregate has been deemed by Ontario to be of “provincial interest” since the stone, sand, gravel and rock are essential in the construction of highways, water and wastewater systems, schools, hospitals and homes. Where aggregate exists close to the markets that use it, the municipalities are required to make available as much of this resource as is realistically possible.

In other words, provincial policy discourages “NIMBY-ism” as aggregate extraction serves the broader good.

And when mining ends, quarries are transformed into areas that are far more bio-diverse and richer in natural habitat than they were before. Typically, marginal farmland is turned into forests, wetlands, lakes and streams. And how’s that a bad thing?

Norm Elmhirst President

Nelson Aggregate Co.