CRAA April 2025 Newsletter

Damming Report

When Industry and For-Profit Interests threaten communities….

Placing an Asphalt Plant in the Centre of a thriving Rural Neighborhood is not just a threat to the health, livelihoods, and financial wellbeing of the community, it is, without question, a middle finger salute to the judicious planning principals laid down by Provincial and Municipal civil planners and engineers.

The 2023 release of the Auditor General’s report on Aggregate Management was damming! From an overcapacity of aggregate in Ontario to the lack of enforcement is alarming. High rates of Non-compliance was another issue. Not enough inspectors, with not enough training or knowledge to manage the positions entrusted to them.

The report found a lack of oversight, poor enforcement of regulations, and a failure to ensure the rehabilitation of sites, leading to potential environmental and community damage. Findings included widespread non-compliance, insufficient inspections, a lack of accountability for violations, inadequate planning for long-term sustainability, and outdated information systems for managing aggregate resources. 

In Summary, the report indicated that the Ontario government is not doing enough to balance the need for aggregates with the need to minimize the industry’s impacts on the environment and local communities. This lack of oversight has significant environmental, social, and economic consequences.

In this case specifically, the existing pit, now exhausted of gravel, located entirely in a Watershed and bordering on Environmentally Controlled wetlands, in the middle of a well-defined rural community, somehow is the right place to build for a permanent Asphalt Plant?

The roads servicing this property are Municipal Roads not designed to handle the heavy Truck Loads of an operational Asphalt Plant permanent or otherwise.  The burden of repairing these roads will fall to the municipality and its citizens. The Township would recover little to none of the additional expense loads for the operation.

The Industrial plant would impact property values by depreciating homes by as much as 50%, while adding to concerns for the health and wellbeing of the entire area. Exposure to the toxins and carcinogenic elements of a functioning Asphalt Plant may be felt immediately and over time. 

A time when the plant and its current proponents have long moved on. A time, when industry takes its profit and leaves behind a devastated community while claiming deniable liability for the health impacts of residents.