Encouraging Responsible Management
of Ontario's Aggregates
Ontario Citizens' Coalitions
Groups involved with gravel concerns
CCA:Caledon Countryside Alliance. The CCA website says, "Over the next 20 years you can expect an increase in the amount of land that is mined for aggregates. Even more of the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine will be ripped up for gravel and stone. The CCA is involved in activities that help place value on our current environment and our lifestyle."
CCC:Coalition of Concerned Citizens is committed to ensuring good land use planning in Caledon - particularly associated with defeating the Rockfort quarry application.
CCMB:Citizens Concerned for Michipicoten Bay.
CCMB is opposing a proposed quarry on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
At the core of their concern is a 1,000 acre block of former Algoma Central Railway lands at Michipicoten Harbour that have been sold to a U.S. company which intends to strip the site of soil, vegetation, and timber, and then drill, blast and crush the coastal rock to within 60 metres of the Lake Superior shoreline. The resulting aggregate is destined for shipment by freighter to Michigan for use in highway construction.
CLT: Mill Creek Subwatershed Community Liaison Team. Environmental issues in the general Puslinch area.
CONE:Coalition on the Niagara Escarpmentis a coalition of 30 environmental organizations and hundreds of individual citizens. It was formed in 1978 and has worked consistently for the protection of the Escarpment and its many values to Ontario society (from CONE website). CONE has concerns
about the expansion of Dufferin Aggregates' Halton Quarry.
COPE:
Citizens Opposed to Paving the Escarpmentis a grass roots non-profit citizens organization dedicated to
preserving the Niagara Escarpment,
ensuring that no new highway corridors are paved across the Niagara Escarpment,
and ensuring that all viable alternatives to the proposed Mid-Peninsula Highway
are fully considered.
CORE:Conserve Our Rural Environment. Mono Mulmur Citizen's Coalition opposing "a 200 acre gravel pit in the Christmas tree farm across from the Little Tract Forest Preserve on Airport Road."
Aggregates Inc.
EH!Environment Haliburtonwill take a comprehensive view of environmental issues and will provide a strong voice to encourage posititve initiatives and oppose those that could have an adverse effect on the environment. EH! recognizes and wants to work with the existing organizations that have an interest in specific environmental subjects, forest, wetlands, head-waters, trails, recreation, lake associations etc
FORCE.Friends of Rural Communities and the Environment is a citizen-based advocacy group that has formed to protect our local communities and environment and to oppose the proposed Lowndes aggregate operation on 11th Concession East.
HCEG:Harrington Creek Eco
Group says, regarding a proposed gravel pit near the head waters of the Thames River:
Unfortunately, pressures from development interests risk destroying the natural
uniqueness in this part of the watershed by excavating the aggregate resources
found in the hillsides of
this recharge zone.
MCC:
Melancthon Citizens Coalition.Goals are to make Melancthon a more desirable place in which to live, to raise families, and to operate businesses, large or small. The goal is to create a modern, environmentally responsible Melancthon Township that will attract new residents, and new, appropriate residential, agricultural, and business developments. MCC is opposing pit a proposal by Strada.
MRA.Milton Ratepayers Association is an organization developed and maintained to successfully inform all levels of Government on issues affecting Town of Milton members (residents.)
MRRA:Milton Rural Ratepayers Association.
Working to:
ensure that the interests of the residents of rural Milton are encouraged, heard and respected.
Oakvillegreenis a non-profit conservation association working to ensure that Oakville remains a beautiful and healthy place to live. We intend to create, partner and encourage initiatives that will safeguard or improve the environment within our community, and protect the environmentally significant features of our surroundings for future generations. They are actively opposing the proposal to expand the
Dufferin Aggregates Milton quarry on the Niagara Escarpment.
Ontario Greenbelt Alliance believes that a strong economy and a well-protected, world-class Greenbelt go hand in hand. Our businesses cannot prosper if goods and services are stuck in gridlock. Family recreational opportunities are diminished if there is no green space left to enjoy. A future free of polluted air and water depends on improved planning today. The Alliance says Unless current trends change, over the next 30 years more than 1,000 sq. km of non-urban land in southern Ontario will be consumed by urban sprawl - nearly twice the area of the existing City of Toronto. About 92% of this area is classified by the Canadian Land Inventory as prime agricultural land. Urban sprawl increases car-dependence, traffic congestion and air pollution. According to the Ontario Medical Association, air pollution is a public health crisis that causes thousands of premature deaths every year. Congestion in the Toronto area alone costs us $1.8 billion per year in lost productivity. If we continue to build more highways to accommodate more urban sprawl, by 2031 the hours of delay experienced by auto drivers on a typical weekday are projected to rise 300%, from about 300,000 hours/day to 1.2 million hours/day.
PERA. Pilkington East Ratepayers Association is opposing a proposed pit
in the middle of the village of Inverhaugh, near Elora, Ontario.
PERL:Protecting Escarpment Rural Land. Mission: To Protect Burlington's Niagara Escarpment Rural Land for Future Generations. One objective:
To prevent the opening of a new North Burlington quarry on the Niagara Escarpment land.
POWER: Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources. Goals are: To save the Niagara Escarpment.
To reduce society's need for landfill sites by encouraging source reduction, composting and recycling by all citizens, commercial and residential.
To promote environmental awareness through education and networking with other like minded organizations.
STORM:Save the Oak Ridges Moraine is a coalition of over 25 member groups and individuals whose focus of concern includes preserving the ecological integrity of the Oak Ridges Moraine. STORM was founded in October 1989 by community-based groups and individuals concerned about development pressures on the Oak Ridges Moraine and a Planning Act that was not addressing the environmental needs of this fragile eco-system.
Town of South Bruce Peninsula citizens coalition. Committed to ensuring good land use planning in the Town of South Bruce Peninsula. Committed to defeating the application by Everest Tree Farm, Inc. for a Category 2 Class "A" Licence Below Groundwater Quarry.
TTRPOA:Trent Talbot River Property Owners Association
of the Townships of Ramara, Brock and the City of Kawartha Lakes.
As reported in the Orillia Packet and Times:
In gathering information for a legal battle that has so far cost $200,000, the association became concerned about the proliferation of quarries in the area and the lack of a comprehensive provincial plan governing their locations.
A purpose of TTRPOA is to stop the Moyer Arnel quarry from opening its operations at the McCarthy site, which is roughly 600 metres from the Trent-Severn Waterway. TTRPOA is concerned about the quality and quantity of water for wells, the canal, the Talbot river fish sanctuary (the last Walleye Spawning ground for the Lake Simcoe Watershed) and is working towards a moratorium on watertaking for a year or two so that an Aggregate Management Plan can be established by the Province of Ontario, for the Carden Plain.
VV:Valley Voices is a community group with over 80 members formed to oppose the creation of a gravel pit on the south side of Shelter Valley Road in Alnwich-Haldimand Township, Ontario (near Peterborough).
See Gravel Watch home page.
