ONE LETTER TO THE EDITOR & ONE ARTICLE

The Letter to the Editor in today's Waterloo Region Record is titled "Good stewards". The article is titled "Trees near gravel pit to come down". Both clarify for me the financial conflict between the here and now and the environment we are leaving our children and grandchildren. The Letter to the Editor gives us a brief discription of the makeup and operation of our municipal sewage treatment plants. As the author points out removal of Estrogen (female hormone) is apparently cost prohibitive. Also the crossovers or "combined sewer systems" whereby rainfall gets included in the water going to our sewage treatment plants is difficult and expensive to fix after the fact. The author while pointing out the challenges and difficulties involved is very positive and supportive of the efforts being made. Fair enough although by not spending more money now we are essentially leaving both known and unknown environmental damage to future generations to live with and or repair.

The article deals with a decision by Cambridge Council to allow a developer to remove trees on the south-west edge of Galt. The trees while being described as scrub, nevertheless were a buffer between an operating gravel pit and a couple of hundred or more Fraserwood area residents' homes. Council split on this decision with the local councillor and three others in favour of not approving the removal of the trees thus jeopardizing the development and construction of twenty-six homes between the gravel pit and the older subdivision.

There are two issues for me. Firstly are we so desperate for land in Canada that we continue to build new homes beside chemical industries (Elmira), sewage treatment plants and gravel pits (Cambridge)? Clearly the answer is no. These locations are proposed by developers who will make money from these locations, end of story. Secondly Council are afraid of the big bad wolf, namely the Ontario Municipal Board. Yes the OMB have a horrid track record. Yes they are strongly biased in favour of developers, gravel pits etc.. Why wouldn't they be? The OMB members are appointed by the province. Developers are an ongoing source of political donations to Conservatives and Liberals alike. These developers don't contribute out of the goodness of their hearts or for esoteric political ideology. They contribute because they expect a significant return on their political investments which they do receive via friendly legislation and friendly appointments to various regional and provincial Boards etc. Meanwhile our locally elected councillors do their constituents no good by rolling over every time they see provincial political opposition. Once again we are for the sake of short term money, diminishing the quality of life of current homeowners. Our municipal councillors are clearly telling them that new anonymous incoming homeowners are more important than the existing ones. And oh yes keeping things smooth with the province and the OMB is also more important.