About 200 people showed up to McDonald's Corners Agriculture Hall Thursday night. Grant Deme photo
About 200 residents packed a public meeting in McDonald’s Corners Thursday night to oppose a proposed extraction pit on Barbers Lake.
Thomas Cavanagh Construction hopes to build the below water level extraction pit, hauling up to 500,000 tonnes of sand and gravel annually.
To do so, they need the Township of Lanark Highlands to approve their re-zoning application to allow aggregate extraction.
Should council approve the application, the decision would then land on the shoulders of Lanark County council, who could support or oppose the township’s decision.
24 speakers raised concerns about how the rules the company’s proposed, from hours of operations to truck travel, would be enforced, pointing to well-documented weak oversight of aggregate operations across Ontario.
Reeve Peter McLaren agrees it’s a valid concern.
Tim Wheeler was one of the speakers, as his family business Wheelers Pancake House runs along the final 1.5km of the road where the pit would be.
He told us what’s being proposed isn’t neighbourly.
Wheeler said Cavanagh has a long-standing and well earned reputation of a good employer, and is surprised this is happening, adding council is facing a term-defining decision.
Cavanagh was represented by Neal DeRyuter, a Land Use Planner from MHBC Planning.
He made a brief presentation highlighting the changes the company has made to the initial application, including new amendments from earlier this month.
We went through those in our meeting preview story earlier this week when we spoke to Friends of Lanark Highlands (FOLH) member Carolee Mason.
Mason told us the below water level extraction component of the application remains a significant sticking point to residents, which was re-iterated en masse Thursday.
The province has concerns
DeRyuter confirmed the Ministry of Natural Resources has not approved Cavanagh’s application for the pit itself.
He said the province provided 50 comments upon review, and they’ve been working their way through addressing each one. There’s nine more to go before they hope to receive ministry approval.
If that’s not the case, he noted an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal is the most likely next course of action.
If say the boxes are all checked from the province and then in turn the township and county, this would become the fifth extraction pit along Highland Line.
Many residents who spoke said that’s simply too many.
An information packet handed out to attendees by FOLH showed the township is home to 52 of Lanark County’s 93 aggregate sites, with 1,641 hectares of licensed area.
They said Cavanagh has three existing area pits which do not have a tonnage limit.
The company is specifically seeking coarse aggregate, or the material used primarily in concrete production.
In his discussion with Cavanagh, McLaren was told that’s a supply that is running much lower than the general public may believe.
In a 2023 interview with myFM, DeRyuter spoke to the scarcity of the material, which is why they highly regard this location, as it has been designated as a significant deposit.
There’s an estimated 2,000,000 tonnes of high-quality sand and gravel.
Making the money case
Other residents made the argument there’s no economic value to allowing the pit as well, given the stress the extra trucks would have on the roads.
Lanark Highlands received about $200,000 in revenue last year from their collective pits, while spending $2 million on road maintenance.
They also expressed a variety of health and environment concerns.
DeRuyter said Cavanagh will continue to respond to the matters raised in these public forums in due course, and continue to update their website.
You can hear our full interview with McLaren below. It’s been lightly edited for clarity.
You can also hear our full discussion with Wheeler, which was also lightly edited for clarity.
McLaren said council won’t make a decision on the re-zoning application until a recommendation comes alongside a report comes from Jp2g Planning Consultant Forbes Symon.
Symon expects that to land on the desks of council in October.
Story by Grant Deme