YOU HAVE DODGED A BULLET FOR NOW

Mayor Hill has made statements that (paraphrasing here) he is taking Highlands at their word and the quarry deal is done.

Tsk, tsk.

They have lied from the beginning.

The limestone is still there.

And whether you punch a hole in a 2 foot balloon or a 6 inch balloon, it still causes devastation, so even if they come back with a 300 acre proposal digging below the water table in that location can NOT happen. 

EVER.

Council has dodged a bullet.

Thanks to NDACT and the army and profile they raised, the FIRST proposal is off the table.

So Council, get your act together and ACT, now before you wind up shooting yourself in the foot.

• Designate the land under the Environmental Assessment Act.
• Set your fees and charges for $100,000.00 per acre for an aggregate application.
• GET a FREAKING OP in place with a specialty crop designation.  If the province hasn't coughed up the criterea yet, write your own and put it in the OP.  You can use Dave Vanderzaag's presentation that he made at the Aggregate hearings, almost word for word.

And as a reminder, from time to time I will repeat some of the lies that Highlands told us.

The first lie was at the January 2009 meeting in Honeywood called by conerned citizens when a then unknown Michael Daniher refused to admit, when questioned, if he was a lawyer.  (yes he was)

Then he denied, when questioned, that Highlands had any plans for aggregate, only farming.

EXCEPT a woman in the audience stood up and stated she had contacted various Ministries in the past two weeks and the Ministry Natural Resources and Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing advised that they had been in talks with Highlands for quite some time about a massive aggregate proposal.  In fact MNR stated they had realigned staff to deal with the massive application.
 
While the audience exploded in applause, Mr. Daniher's mouth fell open in shock.

He finally managed to spit out that he knew nothing about that and the woman asked how he, as spokesperson for the company knew nothing, but she a member of the public did.

Within days this appeared in the Orangeville Citizen:
"In a phone interview Tuesday, Michael Daniher of the Toronto consulting firm of Special Situations Inc. — representing The Highlands Companies Inc. — said the group has never attempted to hide the fact that it will continue farming while looking beyond for other opportunities such as wind and bedrock resources."

And this little gem:

"Mr. Daniher would not confirm that the group has already discussed aggregate extraction with the Province, but he did say it had discussed a number of issues with a number of ministries."

Read more here:
http://www.citizen.on.ca/news/2009-01-22/front_page/004.html