Dear Editor,
I am a resident of the Town of Erin and my family has recently received notice from the Town and Wellington County that they have received a complete application from Halton Crushed Stone Ltd. to expand their pit operations located at Tenth Line and Wellington Rd. 52 (Bush St.)in Erin. Since that time, in my spare time, I have been trying to get answers as to how protected greenlands have now become mine lands. Re-zoning shouldn’t be this easy. In reaching out for answers I am regarded as a mere nuisance and have been unable to elicit any help in the matter. I have been made to feel that the onus is on the poor taxpaying landowner unfortunate enough to be holding property in the vicinity of this pit because we were not wise enough to see this coming. Hmmm, OK.
I then reviewed the notice of application and the wording therein and realized that if I didn’t spend anytime investigating the meaning of the document, the maps, schedules and issues at hand, I too would believe that this is just a little simple matter and well, a mistake really, a clerical error of sorts, that needs to be corrected. Ah ha, all at once I had my answer as to how you go from greenland to mine lands, and all under the radar!
In reality, this is an application for a Class A (meaning large in excess of 725,000 tonnes annually) Pit Operation which is hardly a small insignificant scale, not worthy of attention or concern. Over the past years they have met with NO resistance thus far in all of their re-zoning bids because they only have to notify residents within 120 metres of the site. That is laughable at best, and with the right wording, no one is the wiser nor concerned. It seems there IS one last little inconvenient complication standing in their way here and that is the matter of the ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (EP2) ZONE status on portions of land still remaining. THIS IS THE MISTAKE THEY WISH TO “CORRECT” FOR US. REALLY? This whole process just seems skewed in favour of Halton Crushed Stone Pit and not the environment and surrounding taxpaying community that calls this home. We need to push back!
Sharon and Brian Cranstone