PROPOSED HALLMAN GRAVEL PIT

Paige Desmond has an article in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "Nearly fifty people register to speak on Hallman Pit at council". My guess would be that between 48 and 50 of those people will be speaking against approving yet another new and unneeded gravel pit in Wilmot Township. It's just as bad in North Dumfries, Wellesley and Woolwich Townships. How unecessary is the new pit? A senior Wilmot Township employee advised that there are 15 currently licensed gravel pits in Wilmot that are alllowed to extract up to six million tonnes per year. Normally a quarter of that or less is extracted every year. So where is the need? Simple it's not there. The massive number of gravel pits above what is needed simply allows gravel pit owners to shave nickels and dimes per load off their quotes to customers as the gravel pit owners have a multitude of pits spread across the Region that they can choose from. Hence if they have a customer in Woolwich requiring gravel and one in Wilmot they pick the gravel pit closest to their customer and quote a price based on that. ....................................................................................................................... Of course these very same gravel pit owners will suggest that it is environmentally sound to do that as they will save so many dollars per mile reduced for gasoline, tire wear, maintenance etc. That is true however it's also true that those gravel pit owners literally don't give a damn about the noise, dust, disruption, risk to groundwater, habitat destruction for wildlife etc. Those costs are borne by third parties namely local residents and those costs have been conveniently and self-servingly ignored by the aggregate industry, provincial and local politicians. Why not introduce a system whereby only the needed number of gravel pits are allowed within a Township. Yes they should be spread out geographically as much as possible and gravel operators/owners would each have access to all the pits. Literally a quarter of the pits would be needed and those pits would not be allowed to sit idle most of the time and hence not be rehabillatated for twenty years if ever as they are now.