Gravel production down almost 29%

by Chris Daponte

PUSLINCH TWP.

Gravel production was down 10% across the municipality last year, which resulted in $24,577 less income for the township.

And overall aggregate production has decreased almost 29% since 2005.

Last month, Puslinch officials received their annual cheque from the Ontario Aggregate Resources Corporation (OARC), which distributes the municipal portion of license fees collected from local aggregate producers.

About 3,505,095 tonnes of gravel was produced in Puslinch in 2009, resulting in a  cheque for $210,305 for the township (the levy is based on a price of six cents per tonne).

Those figures are down 10.5% from the 2008 totals of 3,914,705 tonnes produced and a cheque for $234,882.

A letter from David Sterrett, president of the OARC, stated, “While the Aggregate Resources Act does not direct how your municipality spends these funds, the intent of the fee sharing arrangement was initiated to assist municipalities with road maintenance and other administrative matters related to the management of local aggregate resources.”

For 2007, the township received a cheque for $256,734 -  representing the 4.27-million tonnes extracted within the municipality that year - which was up 47% over the $174,104 received by  Puslinch in 2006. Production was actually slightly higher in 2006 - 4.3-million tonnes - but the municipal portion was increased 50% that year, from $0.04 to $0.06 per tonne.

In 2005, the township re ceived $195,518 for its share of local aggregate licencing fees, representing almost 4.9-million tonnes produced.