Extracting The Future – Let’s talk about aggregate mining in Southern Ontario

Throughout the course of 2015, the Government of Ontario will be conducting a 10-year review of the Provincial Greenbelt Plan. The Greenbelt Area covers 1.8 million acres and encompasses Protected Countryside agricultural land as well as environmental and ecologically sensitive areas such as the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine.The Greenbelt was created to mitigate the effects of urban sprawl through population growth; however many Protected Countryside areas also encompass high quality aggregate deposits. In recognizing the role that aggregates play in so many areas of urban development; land use policies governing quarries will likely be one area of focus in the Provincial Review.Quarries are topics that affect everyone in the Guelph community and beyond. They place significant pressure on local water resources as well as aquifer health. In addition quarries pose a variety of challenges for human, animal and environmental stability.Join us on Saturday February 28^th from 12:30 to 3 pm at Silence Studio, 46 Essex St. Panelists will speak on some current challenges, campaigns and legislative oversight with respect to quarries and aggregate extraction in Southern Ontario.