Today's Waterloo Region Record has another front page story about Wilmot Township rolling over and being willing to sacrifice prime farmland for industrial development. What is interesting to me is which cities and townships are so pro growth and pro development that they are willing to circumvent planning processes, protected greenspace and their own commitments. Indeed this includes Cambridge, Kitchener, North Dumfries and Woolwich Township. No surprise there for me.
Woolwich have always played fast and loose with the rules. All rules. Look at the east side of Elmira. A few years back they switched the proposed Elmira By-Pass from the west side of town to the east side. The west side was cheaper and easier to build on as the ground is higher and requires fewer and smaller bridges than the east side. The east side has to cross over the Canagagigue Creek and it's extensive low lying floodplain requiring extensive and expensive bridges and higher elevated roadways. More importantly while they will be burying current farmland they will also be burying decades of Uniroyal Chemical contaminated lands and waters that have never been remediated. This includes parts of both the Stroh and Martin farms.
Our powers that be care not a whit for you or I. It's all about self-serving actions that will benefit them and theirs down the road and the public interest be damned. This will include more farmland being sacrificed on the alter of development, growth, greed and helping the rich get richer at the expense of the public interest. Yet again.
How long is the bridge over the Canagagigue and the adjoining floodplain going to have to be and how much will it cost the taxpayers ?
ReplyDeleteGood question. My opinion is based upon seeing and comparing the amount of normally dry land underwater during spring flooding. It is miniscule on the west side of Elmira (think Floradale Rd.) versus acres and acres underwater on the east side (think of the maps showing the proposed east side by-pass). That road will be crossing a much broader and lower floodplain than is on the west side.
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