5TH DAY (Tues.) OF HUNDER PIT O.M.B. HEARING

The first witness on behalf of the Hunder Pit was a David Hodsin or Hodgsin. Throughout the day I heard his name pronounced both ways. He was described as a soil scientist and an agrologist. His area of expertise deals with rehabillatation of a site and restoring it back to sustainable agriculture. Apparently the Hunder Pit area currently is 97% prime agricultural lands. It is therefore composed of class 1, 2 and 3 soils all of which are considered prime agricultural lands. After rehabillatation Mr. Hodgsin believes that the Hunder Pit area will then be 86.3% class 1,2 and 3 soils. The difference is due to the side slopes which are at a 3:1 ratio from the bottom of the pit and upwards. This will account primarily for the reduction from 97% to 86.3%.

I give Mr. Hodgsin credit for two statements he made pretty clearly. Firstly he confirms that it will take time for the rehabillatated land to recover. It does not happen immediately. Secondly when pressed he indicated that yes topsoil which is moved, degrades. Apparently the degradation is in regards to microbial activity within the soil as well as due to a lack of organic contant which is provided by crops, grasses etc. As I understood him any degradation of topsoil sitting in a pile is considerably less than topsoil which is being moved around for berms etc.. In other words the more often the soil is moved the more it loses both organic matter and structure.

Mr. Paton on behalf of the Conestoga Winterbourne Residents Association pressed Mr. Hodgsin hard on many matters. To my mind the greatest sucess he had was both in Mr. Hodgins above confirmations regarding degradation and the final analysis of the soils after rehabillatation. While classes 1, 2 and 3 are all defined as prime agricultural nevertheless it turns out that currently there is 84.1 % class 1 soils and after rehabillatation there will be 86.1 class 2 soils. This is a clear degradation although still apparently good soil.

After five days of hearings I am coming to some conclusions. There are what are known as industry wide best practices. When a pit operator incorporates them there can be incredible mitigation of things like noise, dust, visual impacts and soil degradation. Unfortunately there are still two issues. To date we do not know who the pit operator will be and thus how diligent they will be to incorporate best practices. Secondly best practices are exactly that. They are not labelled perfect practices or practices with zero impacts. That is virtually impossible when you look at exactly what the gravel pit is doing. No matter how sincere and socially conscious the operator is there will be negative impacts to the neighbours. I guess the question then becomes acceptable negative impacts or not. Secondly acceptable to whom? The Board may say they are acceptable but that doesn't mean they are acceptable to all the neighbours.

The hearing will resume tomorrow (Thursday Sept. 12/13) at 10 am.. There will be no hearings today or on September 26. 27 and 30.