‘No hidden costs here’
Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Bamboozled,’ Sept. 10.
In reading Mr. Robertson’s recent letter to the editor, I felt compelled to reach out to him and reiterate that the Town of Erin and your council are working to ensure that you as a taxpayer continue to receive service excellence for the taxes you pay.
It is well known that the town is on the cusp of much needed growth. With that, the town will see growth in residential, but also industrial and commercial growth. Industrial and commercial growth provide the town with over double the amount of taxes over residential, with a ratio of 2.4:1.
In order for the town to see this necessary growth and for you as a taxpayer to receive more benefits for your tax dollar, we need to move forward with the wastewater project. Through my time in office, I have seen over 20 manufacturers inquire about locating their business in Erin and deciding on locating to a surrounding municipality due to the lack of wastewater services. By having these businesses open elsewhere, the town has lost out on over $690,000 in combined taxes annually, plus the opportunity of creating roughly 1,500 new local jobs.
As you are aware, I have stated that rural residents will benefit from having a local sewage plant, yet will not be contributing financially towards the wastewater treatment plant. To that point, Environmental Assessments are paid through the town as a whole. For your benefit, this process commenced prior to my first term and was initiated at the request of the Credit Valley Conservation authority and the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, as our aging septic systems are polluting the grounds and could potentially affect drinking water sources. Development is paying for all costs related to development, and will also be contributing an additional share to assist the town with funding.
Businesses and residents who will eventually be connected to the system will be financially contributing to connect to the system. Development is required to fully pay for development, as mandated in the Municipal Act. The reports and studies associated with the wastewater treatment plant are paid through development charges and the water lifecycle funds, which have been built up through user fees.
Please understand that there are no hidden costs here. Development will pay for development and properties that will be serviced will pay their portions.
I welcome you to come meet with me to further discuss the town’s wastewater project and address any additional concerns you may have.
Allan Alls,
Mayor, Town of Erin
Keep our water safe
Dear Editor:
I thought that giving a permit to take water to a commercial water bottler when a municipality needed the water would boggle common sense and could just not happen here.
But Nestlé Waters bought the Middlebrook well in 2016 despite the township’s offer and need for the water. Nestlé Waters has known for years the township needs that water. Then Nestlé tried selling its Canadian water bottling business to Ice River Springs without even approaching the township to see if Centre Wellington was interested in purchasing the well!
The township’s water supply is now identified at “significant risk” by the province’s Tier 3 study. We need four new wells according to our Water Supply Master Plan and the best location for them is north and west of Elora. Centre Wellington has already spent close to $1 million getting water mains to access water from that area!
The recent Ontario government proposals for new water permit regulations will require that the water bottler has support from the municipality. Our municipality has made it abundantly clear in a unanimous resolution that it is not a willing host community to commercial water bottlers under any circumstance.
That recent provincial proposal also included priority setting for water use in case of a conflict like in Centre Wellington with municipal water supply coming first.
Sounds good, and we hope these proposals become regulation.
But we still need to protect that water and get Middlebrook off the table for any new deal Nestlé could make with another potential buyer!
The water is not safe yet!
Penny Lipsett,
Elora
Editor’s note: Centre Wellington did not make an offer on the Middlebrook well property until well after Nestlé Waters made a conditional offer to purchase it.
Sides with majority
Dear Editor:
RE: The recent anti-mask protest in Harriston.
The photograph shows a group of 11 protesters.
Hooray for the rest of Harriston!
Jim McClure,
Crieff
‘Deplorable’ roads
Dear Editor:
I have resided on Sideroad 25, Belwood, for over 32 years.
The rural roads have always been very deplorable and unsafe due to the increasing and enlarging number of potholes.
Over the years, sifting has been the mode of maintenance but to no avail. This method, when it is applied makes the road more difficult to drive on since the sifting is not compacted. If the rain happens to fall a day or two after it is worse.
Compounded to that most of the sifting is carried away under the undercarriage of vehicles using the roadway. Not to mention what is washed into the gutters on the sides of the road.
Not only is this, in my view, a waste of taxpayers money, but an environmental disaster.
Considering that after the affixing of the sifting to the undercarriages of vehicles, these vehicles deposit most of it into car washes thereby damaging the machinery and adding unnecessary cost to those businesses. In some areas the sifting has now formed part of the properties. Making the original gutters non-existing.
I know the first cost would be high but considering the reduced maintenance cost this solution would pay for itself in the long run.
Some might say it would cost jobs. Not so, the employed can now maintain the drainage system, if that is the case.
I have noticed during my residency in this area that there seem to be many “Get work projects” meaning, in my view , unnecessary asphalt road work when that could be directed towards upgrading rural dirt roads that would benefit the community and eventually the budget of the county.
I hope my logic find favour with the county’s planners.
Lloyd Bartholomew,
Centre Wellington
No sanitizing?
Dear Editor:
I had recent visit to the emergency department at the new Groves Memorial Community Hospital.
Being there for a few hours, there was never anyone who came to spray or wipe down any of the waiting room chairs.
Many people came and went, and we moved from chair to chair, while awaiting our turn in triage.
When we hear that bars and restaurants are obliged to sanitize everything between clients, why is it that our main hospital does nothing?
Susan Taylor,
Belwood
‘Carbon tax didn’t work’
Dear Editor:
An open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Your carbon tax is not working!
A recent report from the Department of the Environment in their National Inventory Report, identified that the British Columbia carbon tax, implemented in 2008, did not succeed in cutting emissions and in fact increased green house emissions by 65.6 million tonnes between 2015 and 2018. In 2018 alone emissions grew by 15 million tonnes.
This tax was praised by your government and used as the model for the National Gas Pollution Pricing Act of 2018. You were advised by many experts, real not political, that such a tax on Canadians would be futile because most of us Canadians have no option but to heat our homes with natural gas or with electricity derived from gas or coal burning generating stations. We in Ontario are fortunate to be able to use the majority of our electricity from nuclear power, but not so in all the other provinces, apart from New Brunswick.
Getting to work also requires that most of us have to drive a gasoline powered vehicle. I know there are electric cars and soon there will be electric buses around, but these vehicles are not available to most Canadians and if they were they still need to be charged using electricity from the sources discussed above.
I am sending this note to the leaders of the other parties also because I know you are not alone in believing what Catherine McKenna stated in 2018 on your behalf, “We can have a direct price on pollution like BC does. Pricing pollution works.” Guess she and you were wrong!
So what is the way ahead for Canada? Obviously we have to reduce emissions that impact the environment. How do we do that? I am not an expert, but as an engineer I do have some understanding of science so here are few ideas.
Tighten emission regulations and penalties for all industrial emitters of greenhouse gases. Reward success with tax credits.
Embrace/fund/support the work currently being carried out by Chalk River National Laboratories on small modular nuclear reactors. Develop commercial operations and sell these reactors to India, China and the U.S. That would certainly make a difference to the planet’s main airborne pollution sources.
Help provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to close down coal fired generating stations and build natural gas powered ones – or even better, nuclear.
Embrace/fund/support companies working on the use of hydrogen cells for transport prime movers, but be aware that this is a useless thing to do if you are going to produce the hydrogen using natural gas in the first place.
Apparently between 2014 and 2019 the federal government invested $60 billion to drive down greenhouse gas emissions, generate clean technologies, etc. As a taxpayer seeing greenhouse gas emissions still increasing do you think I consider this enormous amount of money to have been well spent?
You have got a throne speech coming up, and I know you will be spending lots of my money on a range of things. Can I ask that when it comes to the environment, would you please identify that the carbon tax didn’t work and you have some other ideas?
Michael Lee,
Salem