Well done Luisa D'Amato, yet again. I have recently taken some shots at the Record for failing to honestly and properly address serious complaints about their inaccuracies in their Nov. 15/25 article about Uniroyal/Lanxess and the Elmira Water Crisis. Since that time the reporter involved, Terry Pender, as well as others have really been writing some strong, environmental articles . These have included stories on the Northstar Aerospace pollution in Preston (Bishop St. community) as well as several on the recent shocking Water Quantity crisis in Waterloo Region. Of course we must not forget the 700 acre land assembly in Wilmot Township and how well the Record have been covering that. Perhaps (??) that gross lack of transparency including NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) has just received a mortal wound if we are out of water.
Back to today's Opinion article by Luisa D'Amato titled "We need a full, honest conversation about water shortage. Where is it?" First of all she hit the nail on the head when she bluntly stepped up in her article and told local developers to butt out (my words). In her words she stated "But it's not the developers' job to be the stewards of our precious public resource - it's the job of the government." Very well said! Unbridled, unchecked and unappreciated growth does wonders for developers and builders bank accounts but at an enormous cost for the rest of us. That cost includes unfortunate lashing out at our newer citizens.
Woolwich mayor Sandy Shantz added to the discussion with her comment "If there's an emergency, we could be in really big trouble." Hmm what an opening for other greener regional councillors to tell her that if she had been more aggressive and insistent on cleanup results here in Elmira, perhaps we could have been supplying Kitchener-Waterloo with our water instead of taking theirs from the Waterloo to Elmira pipeline. I expect that pipeline can flow in both directions. Fortunately for Sandy there are too few "greener" councillors.
Ms. D'Amato also points out that the Wilmot land grab (700 acres) is supposed to provide jobs for the Region's one million people by 2051. Maybe, just maybe that one million residents figure needs to be revisited and lowered substantially with the latest news. Luisa also advises that Premier Doug Ford is just looking for a good crisis to exploit. The irony is delicious again for mayor Shantz. Hopefully her income plummets if she is no longer a regional councillor (as well as mayor) if Doug Ford pulls the plug on regional government. Mayor Shantz partially initiated and then exploited a CPAC undeclared boycott by Chemtura and the Min. of Environment in order to disband the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee and give the polluter and his fellow travellors (M.O.E.) the soft, deferential citizen committee they wanted.
This is why despite disappointments and setbacks I am still a daily newspaper reader.
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