Dear Editor:
RE: Group tries to address wastewater plant concerns, Aug. 5.
It’s difficult to become even more disheartened with Erin Mayor Alls and his council over the wastewater treatment plant, but every so often he manages to lower the bar even further.
This latest approach by the Coalition for the West Credit River was well thought out with one goal in mind: to collaboratively save the trout, hence the river, whilst providing waste water treatment facilities to a growing town. Why are they doing this? They give a damn!
Despite all the preaching by Alls and the Town of Erin (ie. “the best waste treatment technology money can buy”), they refuse to put their “money where there mouth is” and guarantee this best technology will prevent any disastrous effects on a pristine, “blue-ribbon trout stream.”
Furthermore, I’m concerned with Alls’ comment “we’re honouring what the provincial government told us we had to go through in our EA”. He goes on to say “We can’t go outside of that; that’s a guideline that we have to honour.” Honour what? If the guidelines aren’t sufficient we can’t question those guidelines? True leadership, i.e., those we voted in, would have no hesitation in questioning those guidelines, no matter what. It’s what a true democracy is all about.
The simple fact is we haven’t been presented with any “guarantees,” nor has Alls, or anyone for that matter, ever told us the “brookies” will be fine. They can’t even agree to keep the effluent temp limit below the critical 19C. But he did say if the temp becomes a problem the town will “look after it.” How? For a town that is severely struggling to come up with the money to pay for this treatment facility, wouldn’t it be better to have all the necessary “specs” agreed upon and “engineered” prior to breaking ground?
It has been in my experience that its much better to do the right thing for the environment at the beginning than to apply very costly “Band-Aids” afterwards. Enviro-solutions can be very simple. Just observe what Mother Nature has done in the 4.5 billion years of planetary evolution.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature never planned for humans and believe me she’s got her work cut out for her today.
Brett Davis,
Orton