WELLINGTON CTY. – Members of two area advocacy groups travelled to Queen’s Park last week to offer support of a bill aimed at protecting local groundwater.
Representatives from the Wellington Water Watchers and the Concerned Residents Coalition (CRC) from Rockwood were among dozens that travelled to Toronto early on Feb. 20 to rally behind Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner’s Paris Galt Moraine Conservation Act.
The Private Member’s Bill, the Green Party leader’s first since his historic victory last June, is largely based on the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act passed in 2001.
It aims to establish land use planning direction to provincial ministries, municipalities, landowners and others in order to protect the moraine’s ecological and hydrological features.
The plan will be developed in consultation with all stakeholders and be reviewed every 10 years.
“Increasingly over the past years, this region has faced water restrictions and it is becoming more evident that the need to protect the features that ensure adequate groundwater into the future are put in place now,” stated Arlene Slocombe, executive director of Wellington Water Watchers.
CRC spokesperson Linda Sword joined Slocombe as speakers at a media event the morning of Feb. 20 in advance of Schreiner introducing the bill that afternoon.
“It must be understood that aggregate extraction, especially quarrying, is not an interim land use when it comes to the moraine,” Sword stated. “The loss of the water filtering function of overburden and porous aquifer-conducting bedrock will be permanent.”
She added protecting the moraine “must outweigh the benefits of extracting the readily accessible, close-to-market aggregates found in Ontario’s moraines.”
The CRC is opposed to a James Dick Construction proposal for a 25-hectares (61-acre) quarry southeast of Rockwood.
The Wellington Water Watchers have for years objected to area operations they say could threaten drinking water supplies.
“With 8 in 10 residents in the Grand River watershed dependent on wells for their drinking water, and an estimated population increase of 1 million people in the area by 2041, the need to protect groundwater is clear,” states a press release from the water watchers.
Citing the Paris Galt moraine’s “integral” function in filtering and recharging groundwater, the group warns that failure to protect the moraine “will lead to massive investments in infrastructure to provide water for the region.”
The water watchers add that currently, responsibility for the protection of the moraine largely falls on municipalities through planning and the implementation of provincial policies.
Schreiner’s bill, they say, will provide “stronger provincial protection”.
