More degradation of watershed

April 2, 2018 · 0 Comments

The recent approval granted Lafarage to expand its operations near Caledon village (Citizen, March 22) is another example of further degradation of the upper Credit River Watershed.
Approvals are given one at a time, without regard for the impact on the overall watershed — “death by a thousand cuts.”
This “expansion” will add to the existing approximately four-mile-wide by a mile-wide complex of gravel pits that have already significantly impacted surface and subsurface waterflows in the area. The Credit River Alliance, a group of environmental organizations in the Credit Watershed, have been asking Credit Valley Conservation to undertake a cumulative impact study of existing gravel operations and those designated aggregate lands in Caledon to no avail.
As one of the top-10 aggregate producers in Ontario, the Town of Caledon receives minimal compensation for the privilege and residents put up with the impact.
In future, our municipality will also be called upon to play a bigger role accommodating tourists from the neighbouring GTA and more urban development driven by Ontario’s Places to Grow plan. Someone had better figure out what the carrying capacity of the upper watershed is before too much more degradation occurs.
Let’s not forget the millions of people downstream who rely on the Great Lakes for their drinking water. We can’t keep fouling the vital veins of our river system.
This means all levels of government working more closely to ensure better stewardship of our watersheds before it costs us all billions of dollars to correct a situation we could have better planned for at the outset.
Paul Newal,
Alton