Resident Bob Tummonds says Erin’s plan to close a portion of 10th Line to extract gravel makes little sense.
“You’re opening up a can of worms you don’t want,” Tummonds told council last week, explaining the closure will invite ill-advised thrill seekers onto the adjacent Dufferin Aggregates property, where there is no weekend security.
“You can’t control what goes on in there now – what are you going to do if you close the road off?” he asked. “You just talked about vandalism and now you’re creating a place for them to do it.”
The town’s proposal involves closing a 466-metre section of the 10th Line between Sideroad 10 and County Road 52 to extract approximately 53,000 tonnes of gravel from the right of way and along setbacks on Dufferin Aggregates’ property. The town and Dufferin will each receive the gravel taken from their respective properties.
The original deal was for that material only, with the town responsible for rebuilding the road when extraction is complete – meaning the agreement would be worth about $256,000 to the town.
But councillor John Brennan explained the town felt that is not sufficient. Along with Mayor Rod Finnie and Roads Superintendent Larry Van Wyck, Brennan met recently with Dufferin Aggregates officials to renegotiate. The revised deal includes a partnership to rebuild the 10th Line, with Dufferin supplying the material, making the agreement worth between $308,000 and $320,000 for the town.
However, Tummonds said the revised deal still does not benefit the town enough to justify closing the road. He also questioned the town’s policy of continually putting more and more aggregate on gravel roads.
Actually, Finnie said, the town plans to pave Sideroad 5 and some of the gravel extracted from the 10th Line closure could be used to build the base there.
Regardless, Tummonds told council the road closure will be detrimental to residents, and he wondered if it will be permanent.
“It will be re-opened,” Finnie replied.
But comments from other councillors suggested the “temporary” road closure could last much longer than the three-year period suggested by Dufferin Aggregates.
“We could be looking at a five to seven to 10 year closure,” councillor Ken Chapman said, adding the project will likely take place in two stages.
Councillor Barb Tocher agreed. “We would be silly to sit here and think it’s going to be a three-year closure and that’s it,” Tocher said. She added there will likely be an extension, and hinted the closure could become permanent but, “I doubt it.”
Finnie said Dufferin Aggregates is sending the draft to its lawyers, and the town will be doing the same.
