Aggregate News
Waterloo Region
North Dumfries (including Township of Puslinch)
Blessed or cursed? As of October 2013, there were 33 active pits in North Dumfries producing 4.4 million tonnes of aggregate per year, and within two years, with several other applications recently approved or in the process of being approved, quarries within the township could be producing up to seven million tonnes of aggregate per year, “transforming the rural farming community into an industrial landscape.” As of 2009 there were 31 aggregate licenses issued for the Township of Puslinch alone. (source).
Link to Preston Sand & Gravel’s Henning Pit proposal
News - North Dumfries
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Date yyyy-mm-dd |
Posted By |
Article Link |
Comment |
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2016-11-29 |
Environmental Registry |
Dufferin Aggregates – new pit (53.3 acre) proposal “Cedar Creek Pit” next to Alps Pit |
EBR 012-9183 [two small licences adjacent for one large operation at 3 million tonnes/year?] |
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2016-11-29 |
Environmental Registry |
Dufferin Aggregates – new pit (40.4 acre) proposal “Alps Pit” next to Cedar Creek Pit |
EBR 012-9182 [two small licences adjacent for one large operation at 3 million tonnes/year?] |
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2016-11-16 |
Cambridge Times |
Township looks to fill old gravel pits, while asking for more time to consider new ones |
Ray Martin - CRH Canada Group Inc. |
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2016-10-07 |
012-8765 Warren Paving & Materials Group Ltd. request to increase annual tonnage limit |
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2016-09-15 |
CTV News Kitchener |
Motorcycle and dump truck collide, killing 61-year-old woman |
- collision between dump truck and motorcycle in North Dumfries |
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2016-08-17 |
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2016-04-06 |
Cambridge Times |
Ray Martin - decreased to $50,000 from original $220,000 |
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2016-04-04 |
PuslinchToday.ca |
Kevin Johnson |
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2016-03-25 |
TheRecord.com |
North Dumfries citizens group ordered to pay $50,000 to gravel pit company |
Paige Desmond |
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2015-12-16 |
Cambridge Times |
Ray Martin |
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2015-11-25 |
Cambridge Times |
Ray Martin 1985 Cedar Creek Road |
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2015-11-15 |
Cambridge Times |
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2015-11-13 |
Concerned Residents Association of North Dumfries (CRAND) |
CRAND Press Release: Community Organization hit with $110,000 Cost Award |
Temara Brown (see Appendix C) |
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2014-04-28 |
OMB |
Temara Brown |
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2014-03-25 |
Comment |
Preston Sand & Gravel Co vs CRAND OMB hearing (Henning Pit) |
(article) |
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2014-01-28 |
TheRecord.com |
North Dumfries residents have eight weeks to make their case against gravel pit |
Jeff Hicks - Temara Brown - Henning Pit |
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2014-01-24 |
Green Party of Ontario |
Open Letter regarding unfair ruling in Ontario Municipal Board hearing |
Mike Schreiner |
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2013-06-20 ? |
Wellington Advertiser |
Chris Daponte Puslinch Twp. |
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2013-10-23 |
Cambridge Times |
‘Social impacts’ must be considered when quarry applications filed |
Bill Jackson - CRAND - Preston Sand and Gravel, Henning Pit |
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2013-03-01 |
Wellington Advertiser |
Puslinch mayor elected to chair of Ontario's top aggregate municipalities |
- Dennis Lever, TAPMO |
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2013-03-01 |
Wellington Advertiser |
Gravel reassessments could be the pits for 2013 Puslinch budget discussions |
Mike Robinson |
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2013-01-23 |
Pitsense.ca / CRAND |
OMB bans citizens’ toxicologist from testifying at gravel hearing Decision lets aggregate company keep witnesses in blatant double-standard ruling (.pdf) |
Temara Brown, Executive Director |
Opposition:
Concerned
Residents Association of North Dumfries (CRAND)
website www.crand.org / info.crand@gmail.com
facebook https://www.facebook.com/ConcernedResidentsAssociationofNorthDumfries/
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List of Ontario’s Issues
Disclaimer: This information has been compiled through private amateur research for the purpose of allowing the reader to make an informed and educated decision. However, while the information is believed to be reliable, accuracy cannot be guaranteed.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Link: https://awareontario.nfshost.com /AWARE-Ontario/Issues/Aggregate_North%20Dumfries/Agg_North%20Dumfries.htm
APPENDIX B
Temara Brown liked your Tweet
15m: @temarabrown Checkout 2 new proposed Dufferin Agg pits=260 acres & 3 mln tonnes/yr combined! (EBR 012-9182 + 012-9183) #ONpq #NorthDumfries
Temara Brown @temarabrown
@Donna_Baylis they're right down the road from my house. And they plan on adding more land to that later. The whole area has been destroyed.
Temara Brown @temarabrown
@Donna_Baylis It's beyond depressing being outside in @northdumfries . The noise is 24/7, you taste dust constantly... #ONpq #OMBreform
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Temara Brown @temarabrown
@Donna_Baylis Not active enough. Many fear $ punishment. There are over 40 pits clustered around here. It's a divide & conquer strategy.
Temara Brown @temarabrown
@Donna_Baylis And the ND Mayor thinks converting "grandfathered pits" into fill dumps is "a solution to the gravel pit problem." Nonsense!
APPENDIX C
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 13, 2015
Are Cost Awards Killing the Ontario Municipal Board?
Community Organization hit with $110,000 Cost Award - One of the Largest Ever
NORTH DUMFRIES - Ontario Municipal Board (“OMB”) Vice-Chair Jyoti Zuidema has awarded one of the largest costs awards in the province’s history, against the citizens’ group the Concerned Residents Association of North Dumfries (“CRAND”). CRAND and environmentalists are calling the award a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (“SLAPP”), after the Vice-Chair was previously accused of bias by CRAND.
After taking what is believed to be a record-breaking and inexcusable seventeen months to deliberate the motion for costs put forward by Preston Sand & Gravel Co. Ltd., CRAND is calling for an investigation, and for the suspension of OMB Vice-Chair Jyoti Zuidema.
CRAND has been ordered to pay $110,000 to the aggregate corporation even though the OMB hearing lasted only three days. Contrary to the OMB Rules, Zuidema does not address the reasons for making such a high award – she simply cut the award requested in half.
“This decision is outrageous, unprecedented and a real gift to developers! This will scare a lot of citizens away from the OMB,” explained CRAND’s Executive Director, Temara Brown, on the OMB Vice-Chair, Jyoti Zuidema’s decision. “Zuidema’s reasoning in the decision is wrong on many facts of the case, is at times petty and all but ignores the Board’s Rules on Costs.”
CRAND spent over $150,000 to prepare its case, hiring two different lawyers, and intended to call a planner, toxicologist and air quality scientist to present expert testimony.
In a bizarre decision contrary to OMB practice, Vice-Chair Zuidema threw out CRAND’s key witness, even though she knew the toxicologist quit the case at the last minute due to a “conflict of interest”. No one ever suggested CRAND was at fault. Zuidema’s decision ultimately prevented the organization from being able to call any of its painstakingly-compiled expert case.
As a result, CRAND challenged the OMB adjudicator for bias, alleging she unfairly favoured the financial interests of the gravel corporation.
“Her decisions appear to have been focussed on preventing CRAND from putting forward our extensive evidence on the risks to public health and safety, and in punishing us for challenging her conduct,” stated Brown.
Had she not been prohibited from testifying, CRAND’s toxicologist would have stated that this gravel pit presented substantial risks to human health, and should be stopped.
According to CRAND, the rationale behind the OMB’s decision to award costs is not grounded in the motion materials presented by either party. Instead, new allegations have been added in by Zuidema, many of them petty.
The OMB decision challenges Ms. Brown for “acting disrespectfully” for responding to text messages at one point during the hearing. This was not an issue raised in the motion materials filed by Preston Sand & Gravel.
Brown explained she was quickly responding to an urgent family crisis. “I was telling my mother not to worry about leaving me alone in the hearing; that she should focus on taking care of my brother, a transplant recipient who was being rushed to the ER with the sudden onset of heart trouble,” said Brown. “Zuidema knew we feared for my brother’s life, yet, conveniently, she left that reasonable justification out of her decision. Can a person stoop lower than that?”
“The new Chair of the OMB needs to investigate this curious case of a Vice-Chair holding a decision on costs for seventeen months – it’s an unconscionable delay that would create anxiety for anybody”, said David Donnelly, former counsel to CRAND.
– 30 –
For more information
contact:
Temara Brown
info.crand@gmail.com
226-791-0757