Hi David:
I took the Wild Edibles
and Ecology course at Humber with you back in June 2005. I mentioned
then that we had an issue with a proposed golf course development
across the street from us, on the Oak Ridges Moraine. Just thought
you might like to hear the outcome.
My husband did the website,
I did pretty much everything else with some help from neighbours.
The first application to
take water filed by the proponent, James Dick Golf Course Developments,
was very poorly done. We had about 50 comments into the MOE Water
Resources, which is very uncommon (since no one usually knows about
the application). In any event, Dick redid the application. The guy
at MOE said he'd never seen such an extensive report before -- it
was huge. This gave us another window in which to get in more info.
to the MOE, so I hired a consultant and hoped the neighbours would
kick in to help pay for our consultant's report. The MOE gave us an
extension because we had some trouble getting all the reports so the
consultant could take a look.
We also were working on
the Township through this process. We stopped them simply rubber-stamping
the application (had people stuffed in the Council Chambers; they
couldn't all fit into the room -- people were out in the hallway),
they ended up holding an open house and then an information meeting,
both of which were extremely well attended. This was achieved by several
flyers going out, about every two weeks, and back-up info via letters
to the editor in the local paper, which also kept their reporter on
top of things, so we had very good coverage.
The consultant recommended
a whole pile of stuff, and the MOE had some ideas of their own. I
had made it very clear to the MOE, both verbally and in writing, that
if they screwed this up (yes, I used some rather blunt language, but
until I did, they were rather patronizing; ditto for council members
and Dick's people) I'd be talking to the Minister and the Deputy Minister,
and the larger news media. I'd be reminding them of the other recent
poor decisions and non-decisions relating to this area, and they definitely
wouldn't put the Ministry in a good light. This was on the advice
of someone who fought the same issues a few km away (re another golf
course); they spend well over $100,000 fighting it. The person who
headed that up recommended that I go the PR route, rather than the
legal route (she's a lawyer, I'm a former lawyer, now working as an
educational assistant) because the legal route was too costly in terms
of both time and money.
So I took her advice to
heart, I did get quite a few donations to help cover the report although
our family paid a very large chunk, and the upshot is that the Ministry
came in with a decision beyond anything I expected. They granted the
requested water taking for two years, but the monitoring they require
is extensive. My main issue was that the proposed taking was based
on conjecture, not fact, and that wasn't sufficient on which to risk
the acquifer and neighbouring wells.
They are currently in the
process of installing monitoring equipment in selected wells (mine
wasn't one of them on the plan, and I never asked for one; I figured
whatever was appropriate from a science point of view was okay) and
are planning to monitor my well. Which is good, because I'm concerned
that as the pit operation directly across from me heads further into
the water table, that, rather than the course which will come later,
will cause me grief.
If you want to see some
of what we did including the MOE decision, see
Anyways, now that things
are back down to a dull roar -- the time spearheading took from our
family life, kids' activities that they had to give up when they conflicted
with meetings, and the time I took off work were substantial -- I
can get back to working on my Outdoor Ed Certificate at Humber, and
get outside with my Pathfinders.
Just thought you'd like
to know that there are lots of people out there who do take ecology
seriously, including your students. I even had a CEO of a Toronto
company send me a cheque for $1000 towards the report saying he'd
heard of what we were doing and wanted to help support us. Our consultant
also provided way more time than he charged us for.
Take care,
Betty Cerar