Gravel Pits, OMB & MPAC and Rural Communities.

The following was received from the Chatsworth Taxpayers For a Safe and Healthy Environment and is reproduced here as a community service.


Cornerstones Standards Council (CSC) is the Aggregate industry's professional agency trying to raise the standards of aggregate producer practices to be more considerate of Communities hosting pits/quarries.
Because we (The Chatsworth Taxpayers For a Safe and Healthy Environment ) are actively opposing a current pit application (Bumstead Pit), CSC want to meet with us as well as with other municipal and public groups/agencies to hear concerns as more and more pits/quarries apply for licenses:
Saturday, February 4th in Owen Sound at the Bayshore Community Centre.   1 PM - 3PM.  Shoreroom #1  Registration is required. For further Information contact chatsworthtaxpayers@gmail.com


Background:
 It's important to go to this meeting with a strong contingent of our group and make emphatic statements of our concerns and what we will not tolerate (haul routes & costs to taxpayers, cumulative impacts on quality of life, environment,  health & safety, property values, risks to Source Waters, wildlife, agricultural lands and so much else.   Here's a few thoughts to start with:

Ontario Stone, Sand & And Gravel Association (OSSGA)
comments on Ontario Municipal Board appeals by aggregate companies (one day it'll be the Bumstead appeal):

"Limits on Appeals of Official Plan Decisions Would not Adequately Protect the Province’s Interest in Aggregates
"In our experience, municipal decision
-makers can be susceptible to focusing on local interests at the expense of broader provincial interests when it comes to aggregates. Despite the importance of aggregates to the Province as a whole, individual communities or local stakeholders may prefer
that the extraction of such resources take place elsewhere. In these circumstances, appeals to the OMB are essential, as the politically expedient decisions of a municipal council or approval authority, may not represent good planning in regard to the provincial interest in aggregates."


6. Essential materials for building a strong Ontario
The Role of the Citizens’ Liaison Office Should be Expanded
"While OSSGA believes that funding citizen groups would not be an appropriate use of resources..."


Clearly, OSSGA is not amiable towards the concerns of host Communities.  Our questions and comments to the CSC Feb. 4 can include questioning its relationship to OSSGA and how it can possibly mediate Community concerns when OSSGA, this powerful industry association, is such a negative force.

https://ossga.com/multimedia/2017-01-04-091516-35933/dec.16.16-omb_review_submission.pdf
In the above link you'll read another comment by OSSGA which is of concern to us.  Please note that the bolding of the 2 items is OSSGA's emphasis is theirs, not ours.  This indicates the strength of their opposition to any considerations to the Communities hosting gravel pits. That's why we have to pay attention and go to this meeting.....
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I note that MPAC has retroactively reassessed gravel pits to a lower value and this is substantially effecting residential tax rates in rural municipalities. I expect to be writing more about this in the near future however here is is a short article about the impact upon one rural community. https://www.puslinchtoday.ca/2017/01/12/county-councillors-digging-in-to-oppose-gravel-pit-assessment-change/