It’s Getting Hot In Here

Simcoe County has begun building a dumpsite on the Alliston Aquifer, one of North America’s purest groundwater resources. With climate change accelerating concern for the world’s water resources, this construction project has come under particular scrutiny.

Farmers have been opposing the site for the past 20 years, even when it was just a proposal. For several months there has been growing opposition and First Nations peoples, local farmers, community members, cottagers, and southern Ontarians are joining together to tell city councilors to halt construction.

While there have already been several rallies at the site since early May, on July 25th,  about 2500 people came to rally for a one year moratorium on Site 41 development to ensure proper testing will be done. People want the tests to incorporate current levels of rainfall and water table variability, and to address how climate change coupled with a dump site will be affecting their water sources.

Currently, published engineering reports are anything but transparent, and do not adequately address concerns of groundwater contamination. The dump site was approved in 1990, and engineering reports only allow for a 20mm change in the water table. Since 1990, the water table has already changed more than that and with the affects of climate change being more severe than they were in 1990, there will be even more changes in the water table level and rainfall that will affect groundwater contamination. Aboriginal women have been blocking access to the Site, in protection of the water.  Now, many local people are joining to help block site access. Polls show that 85% of people support the ongoing blockade.

The County wants the blockade to end and site construction to continue, but citizens continue to fight against their elected officials and urge them to protect the pristine water and impeccable farmland.

In the past few days, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) has avoided making arrests at Site 41 due to a fear of negative backlash; however, they are calling protesters when they are off the Site, requesting that they turn themselves in to authorities. At least 5 protesters have been called including Vicki Monague, member of the Aboriginal Kweag women’s group from Beausoleil First Nation blocking the gates to the site; and retired farmer and his wife, Keith and Ina Wood. Keith Wood says that he “would rather march in the front lines than have my children or grandchildren die of poisoned water. . . I owe it to them.”

Protesters are mainly being charged with mischief, blocking entrance to the site and halting further construction since July 6^th. Since that date, Council of Canadians and their legal counsel are proving that dump site construction is in fact illegal. “Site 41 was never properly authorized by Simcoe county council…In the absence of a bylaw authorizing the project, it is illegal” states Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the United Nations.

“The protesters are doing nothing more than peacefully objecting to unauthorized government conduct,” said in a letter written by the Council of Canadians’ legal counsel.