Reduce the Juice

STOP THE MEGA QUARRY!

Hey everyone,

Reduce the Juice usually shares fun stories or what’s going on during the project, but this time it’s serious. There’s a Mega Quarry being proposed in an area near and dear to RTJ’s heart, as it’s just north of Shelburne, RTJ’s birthplace. Here’s the deal on the Quarry. Brace yourself for this.

The Highland Companies, backed by The Baupost Group, a Boston based hedge fund, has made application to excavate a +2,300 acre limestone quarry, 100 km northwest of Toronto, in Melancthon Township.

If approved, this would be the largest quarry in Canadian history, and the second largest in North America.

The quarry, if approved, would irreversibly eradicate Class 1 agricultural land, involve excavation 1.5 times as deep as Niagara Falls and 200 feet below the water table in an area known as The Headwaters, since it the highest point of elevation in Southern Ontario and home to the headwaters and sensitive recharge area of numerous important river systems that provide water resources for approximately 1 million Ontarians.

The proponent intends to manipulate 600 million litres of water daily (equivalent to 25% of all water consumed by Ontarians on a daily basis), in perpetuity.

In short, Canada has never laid witness to the potential for a quarrying excavation and operation of this magnitude.

A large and growing number of Ontario residents and concerned environmental organizations have understandingly become very alarmed that our government could potentially authorize Highlands to proceed with what could prove, in retrospect, to be an environmental disaster.

Visit  nomegaquarry.ca for more info

So this is a call to action - write some hand-written/emails or phone your local, provincial, even federal MPs. Give Peter Kent (Minister of Natural Resources) a call as well, he likes to chat.
Liberal, Dalton McGuinty dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Conservative, Tim Hudak tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org
New Democratic Party Andrea Horwath ahorwath-co@ndp.on.ca
Green Party, Mike Schreiner: leader@gpo.ca
Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent: kentp@parl.gc.ca

And please come out to Foodstock on Oct 16th to support the campaign! Get your tickets here:

http://canadianchefscongressfoodstock.eventbrite.com/