Dear Editor,
The deadline for the Ontario Ministry of Environment to receive objections to the proposed
Taggart-Miller CRRRC is October 15. The CRRRC is a proposed landfill and waste disposal area
north of Russell Village at the old brick quarry lake and/or south of the 417 at Devine and
Boundary. It is crucially important for the people of Ontario to register their objections with
Jeffrey Dea of the MOE on or before October 15. Send objections to Jeffrey.dea@ontario.ca and
send copies to minister.moe@ontario.ca, dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org,
gcrack.mpp@liberal.ola.org, pmcneely.mpp@liberal.ola.org, lisa.macleod@pc.ola.org. (snail mail:
Jeffrey Dea, Ministry of Environment, 2 St Clair Ave., 12th floor, Toronto ON M4V 1L5)
If your friends and relatives think contaminating water, destroying farmland, harming
farmers, or destroying habitat, wetlands and woods, is wrong, they can OBJECT! One household
can send many objections.
You don’t have to be an expert or scientist to object! If you’re a farmer use the loss of Ag
lands and negative impacts to livestock. If you’re a businessperson talk about the negative
economic impacts as people move away. Like history? Talk about destruction of a culturally
important place. Do you work in healthcare? Talk about the health aspects. A trucker? Object to
their haul routes. If you hunt, fish, birdwatch, or enjoy nature, object to habitat destruction.
Builders can talk about stalled economic growth. If you’re a psychologist address psychological
effects, including the stigma of being a dump town. Real estate agents can talk about property
values—especially right around perimeter of site. Write what you know and feel.
Some of the important objections are:
 The probability of contaminated water, both surface water and groundwater, including
the Vars-Winchester esker which supplies water to communities from Orleans to Winchester.
Engineering cannot protect us and will someday fail. This is the most important objection
from a regulatory perspective.
 Lack of need. Eastern Ontario has more waste disposal capacity than it fills. It is immoral to
turn healthy, uncontaminated properties into giant wastelands.
 Food or waste? Poisoning Class One farmland is wrong, period. Water contamination
would ruin farm livestock livelihoods, including many valuable dairy farms, in a wide radius.
Plus a dump would adversely affect market gardens, orchards and specialty crops for
kilometres around.
 Proximity to our villages, rural homes, soccer fields, golf course, recreation facilities, group
residences, and schools containing thousands of children.
 Desecration of a 200-year-old pioneer cemetery which is still in use.
 Potential to poison the Bearbrook, the Castor, the South Nation and the Mer Bleue Bog.
 Habitat. Both sites provide refuge for wildlife, including many species considered at risk or
in decline. Scientific studies at the North Russell quarry lake site showed biodiversity greater
than the La Rose Forest. The quarry lake is the “heart of the local ecosystem” and when it is
filled in a critical habitat and a beautiful place will be lost forever. The Bearbrook is unique
and an important tributary of the South Nation. The Mer Bleue Bog is named a Wetland of
International Importance.
 The red shale, designated as a provincially significant resource, would become inaccessible
and remain that way forever.
 Negative impacts of 150+ heavy trucks daily on roads used by school buses and farm
machinery, not to mention everyone else.
 Air pollution. If you can smell it—it’s going in your body—ammonia, methane,
hydrocarbons, methyl mercury, endocrine disruptors, lead, phthalates, particles of who
knows what.
 Negative impacts to the economy of Ontario with the loss of farm operations and related
chain of businesses.
 Negative economic impacts locally as people leave the community and properties devalue.
 Other reasons (too many to list here.) Make your voice count.
Tell the Minister to reject this proposal. Say if he does not reject it outright, he must send it to
the Environmental Review Tribunal. That’s the only way we’ll get our day in court!
By allowing new landfills or expansions the government ensures landfilling remains the
cheapest and therefore most common option. The people of this province would be better served if
the government put as many resources into policies for significant reduction of waste as they do for
landfill applications. Ask the Minister of Environment, Premier, MPPs, and opposition parties:
 Why does a community have to put their lives on hold and spend their time, money and
resources on fighting projects like this?
 What is the ultimate loss of productivity to the province because of that?
 Why should a proponent have to go through a huge process on sites that should have been
excluded from consideration right from the start?
 Why are there no decent regulations on siting waste?
 Why doesn’t the Province of Ontario have a waste management strategy?
Make the provincial government sit up and take notice. The people must speak. We need
thousands of objections to make an impact. Help us save our land and livelihoods!
David Brown
Vice-president
Citizens’ Environmental Stewardship Association–East of Ottawa, campaigning as Dump the
Dump Now