Thank you Auditor General of Ontario for setting the record straight. Today's Waterloo Region Record advises us that "A damning report on the aggregate industry released by Ontario's Auditor General in December confirms what many local politicians and residents have been saying for years- the industry is operating without enough oversight and pit operators often skirt the rules." Shocking - NOT!
Almost any community in Ontario hosting gravel pits will tell you about the dust, the noise and thr traffic from those pits. They will also complain about groundwater contamination among other problems. All this despite public relations efforts from the likes of Mr. Cheeseman and the Ontario Sand, Stone & Gravel Association who like to wax poetic about about the social good coming from gravel pits. While conveniently minimizing the problems he and they have for years babbled on about economic needs, wages and profits being beneficial and environmentally responsible they are. Mostly horseshit it appears, after reading this Record article by Paige Desmond.
I do not know if Mr. Cheeseman is still a big cheese at the OSSGA but he certainly has represented them for many years. More accurately I believe that he has misrepresented them. The OSSGA is a lobby group promoting the ongoing pursuit of profit despite the social ills that their pits bring to communities. Those social ills are supposed to be mitigated by trained provincial inspectors but are not. Here in Woolwich Township we have and have had for decades a plethora of unneeded and unnecessary gravel pits simply to promote the increased profits to the industry, not to remotely help anyone but themselves.
Shame on our provincial governments and their nasty, deceptive Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. The highest insult I can give that Ministry is that they are no better than our Ministry of Enhanced Corporate Pollution (MECP) also known as the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
No comments:
Post a Comment