Elmira Protest Art

Posted on 13 May 2012 by Laurie Jonkman

This would be very funny if it wasn’t about to happen here.

“Smelville” Chuck's Cheese - LOL - No Respect - Daltons Deliht - Not in My Face - Flatulently Rude - Arm Pit City

Posted in Discussion, Lawn Signs, Woolwich Township Council | 2 Comments

What other Town Councils are doing

Posted on 12 May 2012 by Bob Jonkman

Other Town Councils are listening when citizens protest against supposed Green Energy projects. Viv Delaney has passed along two interesting newspaper articles.

From the Saugeen Times, 15 November 2011: Town Council continues to battle for municipal rights:

Saugeen Shores Town Council chambers were filled to overflowing on Monday night (Nov. 14) as the issue of wind turbines once again came up and, in particular, the proposed turbine to be built at the Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Family and Education Centre in Port Elgin.

[...]

NOW THEREFORE in response to the concerns expressed by the public with respect to the CAW’s wind turbine; the Council of the Town of Saugeen Shores hereby requests the Ministry of Environment to review the public’s concerns and provide the public with an opportunity to be heard.

And further, the Town of Saugeen Shores requests that the Minister of Environment and the Director Approvals to consider the public’s interest and exercise their authority to review , suspend or revoke the Certificate of Approval for the CAW’s wind turbine.

…and from the Simcoe Article, 23 April 2012: Meaford council fries incinerator:

Meaford council has put an end to its flirtation with an energy from waste facility for this municipality.
Council at its regular meeting on Monday, April 23, as expected, voted in favour of a resolution declaring that the Municipality of Meaford is no longer interested in developing an energy from waste facility in a partnership with Partners Energy Group (PEG).

[...]

Deputy Mayor Harley Greenfield said he had misgivings about the energy from waste project from the first moment it came before council. “I haven’t read or heard anything that is convincing,” said Greenfield, noting that he does not oppose incineration as a concept.

Posted in News, Politicians, Public Awareness | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Preliminary Hearing

Posted on 7 May 2012 by System Administrator

Title: Preliminary Hearing
Location: The Banquet Hall in RIM PARK at 2001 University Ave. East
Description: The purpose of the Preliminary Hearing will be to rule on requests from groups and individuals for Party, Participant or Presenter status, to identify the issues to be considered a the main Hearing and to deal with any preliminary matters that may be raised by Parties, Participants and Presenters
Start Time: 10:00
Date: 2012-05-08
End Time: 1600

Posted in Discussion | Leave a comment

Update

Posted on 1 May 2012 by DrDan

You’ll hear about this in the paper, but I wanted to let you all know that at the Council meeting tonight the Council voted unanimously to have a presence at the upcoming appeal hearing on May 8th. They will be there to express their position that the bio fuel facility should NOT be located in Elmira. We’re flying on a wing and a prayer at this point, but don’t ever give up hope.

Thanks
Dan

Dan Holt, Ph.D.
519 210 2121
lgr@epix.net

Posted in Appeal, Location, News, Woolwich Township Council | 1 Comment

Spill leads to questions about truck traffic

Posted on 27 April 2012 by Bob Jonkman

In August 2010 a truck rolled over in Glen Morris. It was carrying the same kind of material that would be trucked to the Bio-En biogas plant.

From The Brant News, 5 August 2010.

Spill raises questions

A truck carrying organic waste and animal by-products tipped over its side in Glen Morris

County of Brant Mayor Ron Eddy will be looking into having trucks rerouted around Glen Morris at an upcoming public works meeting following a truck spill on East River Road early Thursday morning.

A Rothsay rendering truck carrying protein waste and animal bi-products tipped onto its side at about 2:30 a.m., spilling its contents onto the lawn of the County of Brant Public Library, Glen Morris branch.

“It was a very large spill,” Eddy said. “It was very disruptive to the village and citizens in the village and certainly the ones close by.”

The semi-liquid mess from the truck was cleaned up by the end of the day on Thursday, but the spill has left lingering questions about the safety of trucks travelling along village roads.

Eddy said some trucks coming out of Waterloo are directed down Highway 24 A because the Region of Waterloo won’t allow them to travel through Ayr.

That means the trucks have to travel down East River Road on their way to Highway 24.

“There hasn’t been a truck turn over before, but there is a lot of traffic going through there, which is a village street, which isn’t built for handling that traffic in my opinion,” Eddy said.

Eddy said he plans to bring up the issue at a public works meeting next Tuesday. He hopes to either have trucks rerouted away from Glen Morris or have a four-way stop established in the village to slow trucks down.

“We were very fortunate that (the truck) didn’t take a very important hydro pole out that has heavy duty hydro lines and that it didn’t damage the Glen Morris Public Library,” Eddy said.

Some of the spill did touch the library’s outer walls, but has since been cleaned up.

Library service was unaffected, said Chris Scrivener, branch co-ordinator for the County of Brant Public Library, Paris Branch.

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Alternate location for biowaste plant?

Posted on 25 April 2012 by Bob Jonkman

In answer to “Coach”, who asks “why then would they want to place this Bio gas plant here?”, in Breslau.

OpenStreetMap showing an alternative proposed location for the Biogas plant

Alternate proposed location for Bio-En plant

When I first heard about an alternate location for the Bio-En biowaste plant I thought it would be re-located much further north, perhaps near the intersection of Reid Woods Drive and Arthur Street, close to the transformer station. But at last week’s Woolwich Township Council meeting I found out that the proposed alternate location is in Breslau on Menno Street, near the Conestoga Meat Packers plant. I don’t know on what side of the street, or on what side of Conestoga Meat Packers, so the marker on the top map is only a guess.


OpenStreetMap showing a red marker for the location of the proposed Elmira Biowaste Plant

The red marker shows the location of the proposed Elmira Biowaste Plant

The second map is to the same scale, and shows that the location in Elmira is much closer to residential houses than the alternate location in Breslau. With the Waterloo airport close by the alternate location, the area is not likely to be zoned for more residential development. The Breslau location is zoned properly for this kind of industry. The Elmira location was rejected by Woolwich Council in 2009 (?) because it didn’t meet the existing zoning requirements.

Also, the alternate location is about 21km closer to Highway 401, which means the amount of trucking is considerably reduced. That not only reduces the amount of exhaust and particulate emissions, it also reduces fuel costs. It’s been calculated that the amount of fuel needed to truck the waste to Elmira uses more energy than is produced by the biowaste plant. If that’s true, it would actually be better to burn the diesel fuel directly in the generators – you’d get more electricity for the same cost in fuel.

So, the plant location in Breslau isn’t ideal, but it’s an improvement over the Elmira location. Still, there should be someplace else where there’s no people, close to the main transportation corridor.

–Bob.

See the Breslau location on OpenStreetMap.

See the Elmira location on OpenStreetMap.

Maps are made available and © by OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY-SA

Posted in Discussion, Location, Public Awareness | Tagged | Leave a comment