An estimated 9,000 tonnes of soil contaminated with petroleum and aromatic hydrocarbons as well as heavy metals have been discovered on the site that is being excavated for a flood control retention pond south of St. James Street.
It could cost up to $400,000 to haul 900 truckloads of it to Memramcook for safe disposal.
The town’s share of the cost would be 25% or up to $100,000 with the rest coming from the federal and provincial governments through the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund.
Councillor Bill Evans broke the news during the Sackville Town Council meeting Monday night when he moved a motion calling for approval of “additional expenses for the cleanup of the Lorne Street Phase 2 project due to a pocket of contaminated soil being found on the former CN property.”
‘Not thrilled’
“Obviously, we’re not thrilled about finding contamination on the property,” town manager Jamie Burke told council. “However, the good news is that there will be a property that was formerly contaminated in our municipality that will be cleaned up.”
Burke explained that the contamination was found on land that the town bought from CN Rail on an “as is” basis.
Much of the area where the retention pond is being dug served as a railway hub for more than a century with rail yards and a big railway shed on the site.
Councillor Shawn Mesheau asked why the engineering consultants the town hired hadn’t anticipated the possibility of contaminated soil.
“I’m kind of curious as to why they wouldn’t have gone a little more in depth in regards to the testing in an area that would be considered industrial,” he asked, “and how it is we’re kind of stumbling across this now.”
“I guess in hindsight, 20/2o’s a wonderful thing,” Burke answered, adding, “It’s easy to sit here now and say ‘we should have done this, we should have done that.'”
Sackville Town Council has received a consultants’ report that contains a wide range of recommendations for attracting and retaining businesses including everything from setting up a “green” industrial park at the Walker Road TransCanada highway exit to establishing a high-powered Mayor’s Roundtable Committee.
The 33-page report outlining a business development strategy for Sackville was written by Lions Gate Consulting of Vancouver in association with 4/L Strategies Consulting of Milford, Nova Scotia. Council hired the consultants last summer at a cost of $17,250.
Tyler Mattheis of 4/L Strategies was on hand Monday to brief the mayor and councillors on the final recommendations.
“We believe that this is a do-able plan,” Mattheis said, adding that while he doesn’t expect all of the recommendations in the new strategy to be implemented, it can act as a guide.
“You look at it, you pick the things that work best,” he said, “and you adjust as you go forward.”
Mattheis reminded council that before coming up with their recommendations, the consultants talked to a wide range of people including town staff, local residents and entrepreneurs, representatives from Mount Allison University as well as officials at Opportunities New Brunswick and other public agencies.
The consultants also conducted a business survey that received 40 responses and held what they called a “World Café” with a dozen members of the public last October.
‘Value proposition’
Mattheis explained the first recommendation — that the town adopt what he called a “value proposition” to guide business development.
“We tend to see it as an elevator pitch,” he said. “We see it as a thing that’s useful to coalesce your efforts around,” he added, as he showed a slide with a value proposition drafted by the consultants.
Value Proposition suggested by consultants
Mattheis explained that such a value proposition can be useful for marketing purposes.
“Your target audience here is the person who’s interested in investing or moving to this community, but also your business person or industry that’s already here.”
Other recommendations
The consultants recommend the establishment of a Mayor’s Roundtable Committee on Economic Development to co-ordinate efforts at attracting and retaining businesses. The Committee would include a variety of “stakeholders” and would ensure, for example, that “new entrepreneurs or contacts are directed to a single point for the best startup support.”
The Committee would also draft an annual workplan, monitor and measure results, oversee business “incubator” support and “support the establishment of a new student business accelerator program in collaboration with MTA and in alignment with MTA’s experiential learning initiative.”
The consultants also recommend that the town develop an inventory of land and buildings suitable for new businesses and focus on development at highway exits including the one at Walker Road:
“It is recommended that efforts continue to establish a working relationship with the landowners of industrial land near Exit 500 and that any opportunities in this area be included in the future Land and Building Inventory.”
Elsewhere the consultants call on the town to: “Consider development of an un-serviced and potentially “green” business park on Exit 500.”
Other recommendations include exploring the feasibility of investment in improved hotel and motel accommodations, drafting a prospectus for a boarding school that would serve international students, creating a “health-care or Senior-Focused Development prospectus to showcase Sackville as a desirable location,” re-establishing the Sackville Chamber of Commerce and developing partnerships with Opportunities New Brunswick, Mount Allison and First Nations.
To view a three-page table summarizing the many recommendations, click here.
No additional staff
During his presentation to council, Mattheis said the consultants are not recommending that the town hire more staff to implement the business development strategy.
“We’re crystal-balling here a little bit,” Mattheis said, “but looking at the levels of volunteers and stakeholders and staff, we think we’ve put forward a plan that works within these levels and is congruent with many communities of your size.”
Mayor Higham thanked Mattheis and his colleagues for their efforts, adding that he and councillors would study the recommendations and get back to the consultants if they have any questions.
To read the consultants’ report and supporting documents, click here.
Matt Pryde, manager of recreation programs and events
At its meeting next week, Sackville Town Council is expected to be asked to approve a new, five-year master plan that would set priorities for recreation within town limits.
The 47-page plan outlines a detailed approach to planning for recreation facilities including parks, sports fields, walking trails, the Civic Centre, school gymnasiums and the town’s 18-hole disc golf course.
Matt Pryde, Sackville’s manager of recreation, says that if it’s approved, the master plan would set priorities giving town staff long-term direction and avoiding the tendency to chase grant money as individual projects pop up.
“This way if we have something on paper that helps us prioritize our long-term vision for recreation, then we have a reason to turn down other opportunities if they don’t fit within our overall vision and scope,” he explains, adding that a recreation master plan can guide decision making.
“That’s the biggest thing for me,” Pryde says, “giving us a little bit of direction so that we know where we should be focusing our work.”
Few new projects
Pryde says the draft master plan focuses on things the town is already doing.
“There’s a lot in the plan, but a lot of it isn’t really new,” he says. “It’s stuff that’s already been looked at — it’s just a lot of ways to prioritize what we’re already doing or look at better ways of doing.”
During a brief presentation at this week’s council meeting, Pryde mentioned a few of the new plan’s highlights:
improving connections between the town’s walking trails and its parks
exploring the possibility of establishing a park in the old quarry near Mount Allison
pursuing development of a fenced-in, off-leash dog park near the downtown
establishing privately-run canoe and kayak rentals at Lillas Fawcett Park
looking for new groups to use the Civic Centre
holding the Sackville Street Chalk Festival every year
evaluating development of mountain bike trails near Beech Hill Park and the Crooked Tree/Ogden Loop trail systems
Natural playground being built to replace plastic and metal one at Lillas Fawcett Park is included in the recreation plan. Lifeguard building at rear could be used for canoe and kayak rentals
During an interview later, Pryde acknowledged that some ideas in previous plans are not included in the new one such as setting up a walking track at the Civic Centre, building a pedestrian/bicycle walkway over the highway to connect the TransCanada Trail from the Waterfowl Park to Lillas Fawcett Park and establishing an 800 metre walking distance from any house in town to a park.
In putting the new plan together, town staff solicited the opinions of more than 430 people during two focus group sessions, a public consultation meeting, three online surveys as well as a booth at the Sackville Farmer’s Market.
“Everything that’s in that plan was shaped out of the data that was collected,” Pryde says. “The number of people that we had through the consultation process was quite impressive.”
To read the results of these surveys as outlined in the recreation master plan, click here.
Councillors divided
Councillor Shawn Mesheau
During a six minute discussion, Councillors Bill Evans and Andrew Black expressed strong support for the new recreation master plan, while Councillors Shawn Mesheau and Bruce Phinney voiced their doubts.
Mesheau questioned why half of those included in the surveys were young people, while the draft plan itself acknowledges that most of the town’s population is over 40, with nearly a quarter over 65.
He also referred to the most recent census figures showing a 4.1% decline in the town’s population between 2011 and 2016.
“There’s discussion in that draft about a decrease in population happening,” Mesheau added, “and yet we’re talking about adding to our (recreation) infrastructure.”
He also questioned why the plan talks about a permanent Street Chalk Festival while acknowledging problems in getting people engaged in events that the town is already offering.
Both Mesheau and Phinney called for more public consultation, perhaps a public question-and-answer session that would allow people to determine whether the new plan is heading in the right direction.
Councillor Bill Evans
Councillor Bill Evans disagreed. He said staff had done “a really good job of consulting widely” in coming up with the plan.
“If the public provided feedback, we’d have a whole bunch of different opinions that wouldn’t help us,” Evans said. “You provide the general (public) input to start with and then staff brings together a recreation master plan.”
Evans added that he liked how the process was conducted and would support approving the plan when it comes up for a vote next week.
Councillor Black said staff had pulled together information on population and age trends to come up with recommendations that he called “spot on.” He added that he liked the fact that the plan is not full of new things.
“There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing already and anything that’s new is just fleshing out what we’re already doing,” he said, “and I think it was really well done.”
Councillor Phinney said people he’s talked to have never heard of the recreation master plan.
“They have no idea what I’m talking about,” he said, adding that the town’s communication process is not working.
“There’s a lot of people being left out,” he added, “and I think we really need to develop that before we turn around and actually approve something that only has been approved by 420 people.”
To read the draft recreation master plan, click here.
For information on how to provide comments to town staff about it, click here.
Sackville Town Council spent 40 minutes on Monday at its first April meeting hearing about and discussing what can be done to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
The meeting brought forth warnings and pessimism, but also practical suggestions and hope.
Some students, who skipped classes to march on Town Hall last month, listened as Sabine Dietz, a local environmental consultant, urged council to start thinking long term about protecting residents from the effects of rising seas, extreme storms and severe flooding.
“Sackville is in a terrible location, we’re in a really bad spot,” Dietz said, adding that the world’s highest tides roll up the Bay of Fundy every day toward the town.
“We sometimes really forget that we are a coastal community and I think we can no longer ignore that.”
Climate lens
Dietz referred to a recent news story which reported that the Chignecto Isthmus is only one “perfect storm” away from having its transportation links severed.
“We’ve been really, really lucky that nothing has happened so far, but this is just a matter of time,” she said, pointing to dykes that are more than a hundred years old and that were not designed to protect built-up areas.
Dietz called on council to adopt what she called a “climate lens” so that the inevitable effects of climate change are considered in all of its actions including adoption of the new economic development strategy that consultants have just submitted.
Ambulance station
Later during an interview, Dietz referred to council’s decision to allow a new ambulance station to be located on Robson Avenue as a prime example of failing to view municipal planning through a climate lens. She reiterated her concerns that ambulances could be cut off from both the town and highway during a severe storm putting local residents at risk.
At the same time, Dietz acknowledged that if the town had refused to rezone the land to allow the station, Ambulance New Brunswick could have appealed that decision to the Assessment and Planning Appeal Board.
But, she said, it’s important for local politicians to stand up to outside pressure from other levels of government when it comes to protecting their citizens from the effects of climate change.
It was a point she made earlier in her presentation to council.
“It’s really up to local government to protect its citizens and infrastructure in a way that makes sense,” she said. “It’s our risk, it’s our lives, it’s our community.”
Climate Emergency
Councillor Bill Evans
Councillor Bill Evans served notice he would be presenting two motions at next week’s council meeting that striking students had called for during their march on Town Hall last month.
“The first was to pass a motion, which is perhaps symbolic, but I think hugely important, and that’s recognizing that we are in a climate crisis,” Evans said, adding that he would also bring a motion forward to amend the town’s Sustainable Sackville plan in light of the latest UN report on climate change.
Councillor Allison Butcher voiced support for Evans’s motions. She said that as the mother of two students who were taking part in the march, she found it “completely inspiring to watch.”
She added it made her realize she is part of a generation that hasn’t done anything about climate change.
“It’s really shameful that we have put on the shoulders of our children,” Butcher said, “that they need to shake us and say ‘we don’t have time to wait until we are adults to do this, it needs to happen now.'”
Dire future
Councillor Andrew Black
Councillor Andrew Black also seemed in agreement, but he sounded a note of deep pessimism as the father of “three young kids.”
He said he would not necessarily have chosen not to have children because of the future that awaits them “but they’re going to probably live in a world that’s going to be very different from what I would like them to live in.”
Black went on to say he firmly believes “we’re doomed when it comes to climate change…I base my pessimism on my lack of faith in humanity,” he said.
“Because people are too selfish or unaware of the change that each of us has to make to ensure a future for humanity, let’s face it, the Earth will remain, life will go on, just not including us. As dire as that seems, it’s the reality we face,” Black said.
Councillor Shawn Mesheau questioned the value of Evans’s “symbolic” motions and after some discussion, agreed to bring one to council next week with “more tangible things…which we can work on and put resources behind.”
Councillor Michael Tower rounded out the discussion saying he would support Evans’s motions. “I agree we do have to act now,” he said, “we’ve been given all kinds of reasons tonight why we have to do it.”
To listen to the council discussion of Councillor Evans’s proposed motions, click on the media player below. The discussion begins with comments from Mayor Higham:
‘Could I speak?’
As the discussion concluded, Hanna Longard, a Mount Allison student who was co-organizer of the march on Town Hall, stood up and asked, “Could I speak?”
After a pause, Mayor Higham said no.
“Sorry, but no unscheduled presentations,” he answered, adhering to the rule that no one is allowed to make comments or ask questions at council’s first monthly meeting unless they’ve been approved in advance.
Longard then left the council chamber clearly upset.
Hanna Longard outside council chambers
She explained later that she had wanted to reinforce what Sabine Dietz said by calling on council for a commitment to act.
“That is what I wanted to speak to in the context of clarifying that a climate emergency is not symbolic and as students, we’re not asking for a symbolic climate emergency,” Longard said.
She repeated Dietz’s call for a “climate lens” to guide council’s actions.
“Then it’s not just symbolic. All our policies going forward are responding to the climate crisis with the weight and the urgency that we need to,” Longard added.
She also took issue with Councillor Black’s expression of deep pessimism about the likelihood of action on climate change.
“When you say you’re a pessimist about climate change, you are saying no to our futures,” Longard said.
“You’re saying to us that you don’t see we have a future and we’re saying that we still have time.
“If you implemented the climate policies that we have come up with in different governments throughout the last 60 years, if those had been implemented and if we implemented them now and implemented stronger ones, we could find a way to create a liveable future,” she concluded.
Longard also referred to Black’s suggestion that he would think twice about what it means to have children who face a dire, climate change future.
“I’m questioning every day what it means to have children,” she said. “And that’s what we’re talking about in our social circles as young people.”
Today, Longard sent a letter addressed to town council outlining the concerns she was not able to express during Monday’s meeting. To read it, click here.
Evelyn and David Ernst at this week’s cranberry convention in Quebec City
It’s taking longer than expected to complete the tallest building in Sackville, but Evelyn and David Ernst say the state-of-the art, 44-metre, frozen food storage freezer should be ready in June.
The Ernsts, co-owners of Terra Beata Farms, are building the 14-storey freezer in the Sackville Industrial Park in partnership with Burnbrae Farms, the Ontario-based company that operated the egg-processing plant there before closing it in 2011.
On Tuesday, the Ernsts, who are both 50, were cruising along the TransCanada Highway toward Sackville after attending a two-day cranberry convention in Quebec City.
“Quebec has a very strong cranberry industry,” Evelyn Ernst said by cellphone. “They organize very educational sessions on growing cranberries or marketing cranberries, but it’s also a great way to get together with all the other growers, talk cranberries and learn about the latest trends in the industry.”
Cranberry connection
The Ernsts have been talking and learning about cranberries since the late 1990s when they bought a 12-acre peat bog across from their home on Heckmans Island near Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
“David was working at High Liner Foods, which is the big fish processor in Lunenburg,” Evelyn said on her scratchy phone connection. “And at that point, the fishing industry was not going very well.”
“We had caught all the fish because there weren’t many left to catch in the ocean,” David said, referring to a time when High Liner had decided to decommission its fishing boats because of dwindling stocks.
The 44-metre food freezer is the tallest structure in Sackville. Cranberries and blueberries will be washed, dried and frozen in the former egg plant (lower right) and stored with other foods in the tall building (left)
“And so, David thought this does not look very good,” Evelyn said, adding that when the nearby land came up for sale in a tax auction, he said they should buy it.
“And, I said ‘if we buy it, what are we going to do with it?’ And, he said, ‘well, plant cranberries.'”
After David took a cranberry-growing course from the Nova Scotia department of agriculture, the Ernsts were on their way. Three years later, when they couldn’t sell their first crop, they bought used home freezers to store it, taking their first step into food processing.
Eventually, the Ernsts learned that although people would buy fresh and frozen cranberries, they also wanted products Evelyn had made to demonstrate how versatile cranberries could be, so today they sell a variety of them including juice, preserves and dried fruit.
They still operate their farm, but also buy cranberries from about a dozen other farms in Atlantic Canada, handling more than five million pounds a year and serving markets in a wide variety of countries including Germany, France, Ireland, Poland, Latvia, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.
Over the years, the Ernsts have been able to expand their operations thanks to a series of repayable loans provided by the federally funded Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
State of the art cold storage
The Ernsts decided they needed the freezer building in Sackville to take control of the frozen cranberries they were storing at a variety of rented facilities where costs were steadily rising and where it was increasingly difficult to keep track of their inventory.
“The other companies that we compete against on the frozen cranberry market have their own freezing and storage facilities,” Evelyn says. “So, this is a way to have control over our cranberries,” she adds, “and for us to keep our costs under control.”
Unfinished side of building showing steel racking and four vertical aisles where automated cranes will run on tracks to store and retrieve pallets of frozen foods (click to enlarge)
David explains that the new facility is state-of-the art, known in the trade as High Bay Cold Storage, a fully automated storage and retrieval system developed by SSI Schaefer.
“The structure that everybody saw being built through the summer is actually racking that will work like shelves to hold pallets of product,” Evelyn says, adding that the frozen food will be moved into the cold storage on a conveyor system where it will be picked up by a crane to be placed on the racking.
“The racking is set up so that there are four long aisles from one end to the other end and the cranes run back and forth along railway tracks that are placed in each aisle so each crane can pick up product or retrieve product from either side of the track that it runs on,” Evelyn explains.
To see a video demonstration of an automated SSI Schaefer cold storage facility in Belgium, click here.
Since the Ernsts will be using only 20 per cent of the capacity in the huge storage building, they’re planning to rent space to other frozen food companies offering a centrally located, fully automated storage site with computerized inventory tracking. David says the facility can hold up to 30 million pounds of frozen food.
Cranberries and blueberries
Cranes hoist insulated metal siding panel into place on south side of the big freezer
Although the project won’t be finished until June, the Ernsts point out that they’ve been using the former egg plant building in partnership with East Coast Wild Blueberries of Great Village, N.S.
“We already installed and ran last season a blueberry and cranberry cleaning line,” David says.
“That means that last summer,” Evelyn adds, “trucks arrived in that facility from blueberry farms in August and September and then from cranberry farms in October and November.”
David says the fruit was cleaned, dried and quick frozen. Once the cold storage building is ready, the fruit will be stored there saving the costs of trucking it to other sites.
At the moment, the Ernsts have 29 employees at their farm in Nova Scotia and three in Sackville, but will be needing more workers here when the full facility is up and running.
“The only thing I’d like to find now is the brightest and best Sackville young people,” David says, adding that they want a mix of older, experienced workers as well as younger ones.
“I have two requirements for people to work for us,” he says. “They have to be able to think and they have to be able to care.”
The Ernsts say they’ll need versatile people, everything from line workers and fork-lift operators to a facility manager.
“We want people who feel like they own the place,” David says.
Evelyn and David Ernst last Tuesday in front of conveyors that will move products into the cold storage building
MLA Megan Mitton delivers her statement in N.B. legislature
MLA Megan Mitton took opposition to a proposed rock quarry in Westcock near Sackville to the floor of the New Brunswick legislature today.
During a short members’ statement, the MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar pointed out there are already quarries in the area.
“So the residents are all-too-familiar with the impacts,” Mitton said. “They are concerned for their water and air quality, their safety and the value of their properties.”
Mitton added that residents have lost wells and sustained cracks in the foundations of their houses.
“The policies that are in place do not protect the residents of rural areas,” she said. “No priority is placed on protecting local communities. We need better land-use planning policies.”
Mitton also noted that controversy over quarry development is not new to the province, but neither the previous Liberal government nor the present Progressive Conservative one have taken steps to implement better protections for local residents.
“We were promised change and I know the residents of my riding would like to see it,” she concluded.
Mitton hears residents’ concerns
Earlier during a telephone interview, Mitton said she met with Westcock, British Settlement residents yesterday to hear their concerns since she wasn’t able to attend the community meeting held last week at St. Ann’s Church Hall.
She noted the widespread opposition to the quarry with people writing letters and signing a petition against it.
“It’s not about being anti-business, but we can’t be open for business at any cost,” she said.
“One of the first things that did occur to me was what type of environmental impact assessment or other version of that would apply here,” she said, adding that she told the residents she is planning to raise the issue with the minister of environment and local government.
Mitton suggested that people who live in unincorporated local service districts or LSDs need a greater say in how they’re governed.
“Local residents, even when they stand to be really severely impacted, don’t have a lot of rights when it comes to this,” she said.
Meantime, Bowser Construction, the Sackville company proposing to open the quarry off British Settlement Road, is still not returning calls.
Bowser received conditional approval for the quarry from the Southeast Planning Review and Adjustment Committee on January 23rd.
To listen to Megan Mitton’s statement in the legislature, click on the media player below:
Community meeting at St. Ann’s Church Hall, Westcock
More than 80 people turned out for a meeting Wednesday evening at St. Ann’s Church Hall in Westcock, where residents heard details about a rock quarry that Bowser Construction of Sackville wants to operate off British Settlement Road.
Everyone who spoke at the meeting expressed strong opposition to the quarry.
“It’s nice to see so many people here to show their support,” said Sharon Ward whose home at 221 British Settlement Road is only 25-35 feet from a right-of-way that the company is proposing to use as an access road for the quarry.
The quarry itself would be on land that Keith Carter owns a few hundred metres back in the woods.
“My husband and I spent 45 years building the equity in our home, which will be gone overnight with the opening of a quarry,” Ward said. “I know that having this quarry and right-of-way so close to my home will have a very detrimental effect on my way of life and that of my children and grandchildren,” she added.
No obligation to notify
Ward said that she was not notified of the January 23rd hearing during which the Southeast Planning Review and Adjustment Committee gave conditional approval to the new quarry.
She added that when someone put survey tape around trees on her property in late February, she telephoned the Regional Service Commission and was told authorities had no obligation to notify her because her home would be more than 100 metres from the quarry.
“When I asked for information and tried to explain that we were right next to the right-of-way, I was informed that it was none of my concern,” Ward said, adding she was told that if she didn’t agree, she should hire a lawyer and launch a civil suit.
Ward said she has been talking to a lawyer and is considering appealing approval of the new quarry to the New Brunswick Assessment and Planning Appeal Board.
Under the Community Planning Act, such an appeal must be launched within 10 days of a development permit being issued. However, planner Tracey Wade said yesterday that no permit has been issued because Bowser Construction has not yet met the conditions imposed by the committee. For a list of those conditions, click here.
Help from advisory committee
Cheryl Ward
Meantime, a group called the Sackville Parish Local Service District Advisory Committee is helping organize opposition to the quarry.
Cheryl Ward, who spoke for the group last night, said they’re concerned about how the proposed quarry would affect wells in the area.
According to the minutes of the planning committee meeting, Giles Beland of Bowser Construction said a study indicated that “any impact on groundwater supplies was extremely unlikely.”
However, Ward said that so far, her committee hasn’t been able to find the study or determine when it was done.
She said the group is also seeking answers from the provincial department of transportation about whether Bowser Construction can be given approval to use a right-of-way that is only 20 feet wide even though planning documents show its width as 20 metres.
Narrow access road
Garry Goodwin with neighbour Sharon Ward
Garry Goodwin, who owns land the right-of-way crosses, told the meeting his deed clearly shows it’s only 20 feet wide which means that if the quarry goes through, big trucks would be rumbling within 50 feet of his home.
He told the meeting the planning committee doesn’t have a clue about a residential area with children playing near where big trucks would be hauling rocks.
“For a bunch of jokers to sit up there around the table in Moncton and make decisions on a rock quarry down here, they’re idiots,” he said.
“They’re making decisions on the value of our homes and our way of life down here,” he said.
“We’re on a dead-end road, we live in a quiet community down here and now we’ve got this coming.”
Existing quarries
Margaret Hicks was one of several residents at the meeting who complained about damage from blasting at existing quarries near St. Ann’s Church that have been operating for decades.
“I had several cracks in my basement,” she said. “I had cracks in my ceiling, cracks in my living room wall.”
She added that at first, the company operating one of the quarries repeatedly denied responsibility.
“Eventually, they did fix it, but it was a racket to get anything done,” she said, adding she also had to replace all the windows in her home.
Barb Kaye
Barb Kaye, who lives across the road from the right-of-way on Garry Goodwin’s property, said her well collapsed requiring her to put a new one in last September.
“It was $10,000,” she said later during an interview. “Since then, which I’ve never had to do before, I had to put a filter system in the basement to clear the water because it was always clogging the washing machine (with) a lot of grit.”
Kaye said she’s especially worried since the proposed new quarry would be much closer to her home than the existing ones.
Letter writing campaign
During the meeting, John Haney, who lives on Rte. 935 in Wood Point, called on everyone to write letters to politicians opposing the new quarry.
He said later, he would be writing letters himself.
John Haney
“It feels to me as though this peninsula is under siege in terms of resource extraction,” Haney added.
“I’ve got two young boys and we have logging trucks roaring down our road perpetually and they’re just denuding the peninsula down there.”
Haney said while he’s a long way from the proposed quarry, he does worry about effects on groundwater, which doesn’t pay attention to property lines.
He added that there’s so much shale and sandstone in the area, there’s no need to put another quarry near people’s homes.
He suggested that too often, politicians bend over backwards to help private companies without observing proper safeguards and procedures.
“Environmentally, I feel like there’s so many red flags here, screaming red sirens and at the very least, there should be due process.”
Sharon Ward and Randy Johnson live close to the proposed quarry off British Settlement Rd.
Residents in British Settlement and Westcock are gearing up to fight another quarry in their area — a quarry that they fear would destroy property values, jeopardize water supplies, endanger the stability of their homes and pose a threat to the safety of local children.
A group called the Sackville Parish Local Service District Advisory Committee has organized an emergency community meeting at St. Ann’s Church hall on Wednesday, March 20 at 7 p.m.
The group was reacting to news that Bowser Construction of Sackville received conditional approval from the Southeast Planning Review and Adjustment Committee on January 23rd to establish a rock quarry off British Settlement Road East near Green Road. Only six people whose properties are within 100 metres of the proposed quarry had received notices about it.
Residents opposed
Sharon Ward, who lives at 221 British Settlement Road, says she and her husband first got wind of the quarry in late February when somebody put survey tape around trees on their lawn.
Ward says Bowser Construction is proposing to use an old right-of-way only 25-35 feet from her home to gain access to the quarry which would be a few hundred metres back in the woods. She says it would mean huge, rock-hauling trucks rumbling along a narrow, 20-foot right-of-way beside her house and then turning onto a residential street not designed for heavy equipment.
“It’s going to change a lot of the way of life around the neighbourhood, not only my house but around the neighbourhood,” Ward says.
“The school bus lets the children off and they walk up and down the road,” she adds. “My grandchildren are used to being able to play right close to where the right-of-way is.”
Randy Johnson, who lives nearby, worries that blasting in the quarry would affect the quality of the well water he depends on to operate the East Coast Beef Jerky business he established about five years ago.
“It’s hard to find good water as it is,” he says. “My well is down 205 feet, so any blasting could ruin my water and then the business is done.”
Many concerns
St. Ann’s Church in Westcock where residents are holding an emergency meeting at 7 p.m. Wed. Mar. 20. (Wikipedia photo)
According to the minutes of the planning review committee hearing in January, Giles Beland of Bowser Construction responded to property owners’ concerns about water saying, that “a hydrology study indicated that any impact on groundwater supplies was extremely unlikely.”
The minutes note that the planning committee also received a letter from resident Garry Goodwin who owns the right-of-way that Bowser is proposing to use.
During a telephone interview, Goodwin expressed strong opposition to the quarry saying he will not be moving a shed that sits close to or even right on the edge of the right-of-way.
He also scoffed at the planning committee’s review.
“That bunch in Moncton, they’re just a joke,” he said. “They don’t even know where British Settlement is, they don’t know where we live.”
Goodwin said his home would be about 300 metres from the proposed quarry.
Existing quarries
“There’s already enough dynamite going off with the existing pits and we don’t need a new one,” Goodwin added referring to quarries farther away from his home where rock blasting has been going on for decades. He said residents have had to cope with damage to their homes as well as collapsed wells.
He said he had to replace his well and pay $2300 to repair damage to the flue above his fireplace as well as cope with cracked windows and the cracked floor in his carport.
A letter from the Sackville Parish Advisory Committee to the provincial ministers of the environment and transportation earlier this month also points to “major issues” with the existing quarry including wells drying up, poor air and water quality, cracked basements and walls, houses shaking during blasting and lowered property values.
The letter calls on the ministers to prevent another quarry in British Settlement.
“This is a beautiful area and we do not want it destroyed by heavy industry,” the letter says. “It cannot be reclaimed once the damage is done.”
Conditional approval
In its January decision, the planning committee imposed a number of conditions on the proposed quarry including the requirement that Bowser Construction obtain an Access Permit from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, submit a legal document identifying the use of a right-of-way as an access route and obtain approval for the quarry from the provincial department of the environment and local government.
So far, calls to Bowser Construction have not been returned.
To read the January 23rd minutes of the Southeast Planning Review and Adjustment Committee, click here.
Student strikers marching to Sackville Town Hall (click to enlarge)
Hundreds of students in Sackville rallied in the academic quadrangle at Mount Allison University today before marching to town hall to demand that all levels of government take action on climate change.
Students from Salem Elementary, Marshview Middle School, Tantramar Regional High and the university were participating in a global education strike with young people in more than 100 countries skipping classes to participate in marches and rallies.
Students rally in the Mt. A. academic quad
In Sackville, students carried a wide range of protest signs including one that read “Capitalism Must Go To Save Our Planet” and another that said, “I’m Sure The Dinosaurs Thought They Had Time Too.”
Tantramar High students Kaylee Mikalauskas (L) and Severine Beisser-Jackson
As they marched east on York Street and then south on Main, the students shouted a variety of chants including “No more coal, no more oil. Keep the carbon in the soil.”
Many spoke of their fears for the future in a warming world.
“I am absolutely terrified,” said Mt. A. student Emily Steers as she spoke to the rally outside town hall. She added that when she read the latest UN report on climate change last October, she wept.
“We are in a crisis of our own making and we can stop it,” she said. “We can do this, but will we?”
Steers castigated politicians who are fighting against carbon taxes while pushing for more oil pipelines. She drew cheers when she called for a fundamental economic shift.
“Our economy needs to change right now away from an oil-based economy,” she said.
Mt. A. student Shen Molloy
Earlier, at Mt. A., environmental science and biology student Shen Molloy warned that Sackville and vicinity is especially vulnerable to climate change because of the potential for flooding that could cut off the TransCanada highway and the CN rail line, shutting down the daily movement of goods worth $50 million across the Chignecto Isthmus.
“It is fantastic to see so many kids here taking action against climate change. It gives me hope for the future,” Molloy said.
“Everyone is responsible for the conservation of the environment,” she added. “Ultimately the greatest threat to the environment is assuming someone else will save it.”
Meantime, Quinn MacAskill, a Grade 8 student at Marshview, spoke at both rallies, reciting a poem at Mt. A. and delivering a plea for change outside town hall.
“I wish to walk through the trees without fear they will soon be cut down,” she said. “I wish to lie on the beach and let sand sift through my fingers, not plastic.”
Marshview student Quinn MacAskill
MacAskill added that she also wished to breathe clean air and eat “food grown by loving hands in the familiar soil of my garden, not food grown by a machine thousands of kilometres away.”
She called on the town to update its Sustainable Sackville plan noting that the plan already calls for protection of both community health and the health of natural eco-systems.
“I believe in those words,” she said, “and I think Sackville has the capability to become a leader in the province and even in our country.”
The students presented a two-page letter to MLA Megan Mitton, Deputy Mayor Ron Aiken and Councillors Bill Evans and Allison Butcher.
The letter calls on the town to declare a Climate Emergency, an action already taken by such cities and towns as Halifax, Vancouver and Kingston, Ontario.
Mitton pledged that as the youngest member of the legislature, she would stand with the students in fighting for action on climate change.
Ron Aiken noted that town council has already taken a number of steps such as opposing the Energy East pipeline, banning single-use plastic water bottles at town hall and buying a hybrid car for the bylaw officer.
Aiken drew laughter when he said he’s so old that he participated in the first Earth Day in 1970. He added that his generation tried to do something about what they called pollution.
Mt. A. student and rally organizer Hanna Longard
“We failed, we failed utterly,” he said. “Don’t do what my generation did. Do something different, have a new idea and push it forward,” he added.
Hanna Longard, one of the main organizers of today’s march and rallies, called on politicians and policymakers to take the steps students are asking for in their letter.
“If you say no to our asks, you’re saying no to our lives and the lives of those yet to come,” she said. “Don’t let the weight of our broken future sit on your shoulders. Take responsibility and use your positions of power to give us a fighting chance.”
To read the complete text of the students’ letter, click here.
The Lund property just west of Squire Street adds woodland to the Waterfowl Park
At its meeting Monday evening, town council gave approval in principle to a bylaw changing the boundaries of the Sackville Waterfowl Park.
The changes reflect the addition of nearly 20 acres of marsh, woodland and meadow bequeathed to the town as an ecological gift by Daniel Lund who died in 2013.
The Lund property increases the size of the existing 55-acre Waterfowl Park by about a third
Last August, town council approved spending $15,000 to create a small visitor parking lot just off Squire Street and to restore a cobblestone trail that Lund built. The trail will lead to a small cairn telling visitors about Lund and his gift.
Town manager Jamie Burke says staff began building the trail last fall, but the work was interrupted by the early arrival of winter.
He said the work will continue when the snow has melted.
In the meantime, the Sackville Rotary Club has agreed to finance a bridge that will connect the trail on the Lund property to one in the existing Waterfowl Park.
For earlier coverage including a brief history of the Waterfowl Park, click here.
It’s not quite a done deal, but it appears that singer/songwriter Joel Plaskett, one of Atlantic Canada’s best-known musicians, will be a headliner at Sackville’s Bordertown Festival in May.
At its meeting last night, town council authorized the mayor to sign a $7,000 contract with Plaskett for a performance at the Vogue Cinema during the festival, which is being held from May 23 to 26.
Joel Plaskett performing live on radio. (Cathy Irving/CBC)
“I just want to say, I’m super excited, I’d buy a ticket right now if they were available,” said Councillor Andrew Black.
“Joel Plaskett is a huge headliner,” he added. “He’s going to draw a huge crowd, the tickets will sell out super fast.”
Town manager Ron Kelly Spurles acknowledged that Plaskett’s $7,000 fee would put a big dent in the town’s festival budget of $12,500, but added that ticket sales would generate at least an additional $2,500.
He also pointed out the town gives financial support to other groups that want to perform at the festival.
“We were able to fund everybody who applied for a grant,” he said, adding that therefore, the payment to Plaskett would not short-change anyone else.
Kelly Spurles said Plaskett would draw people into Sackville generating lots of business activity.
The contract with Plaskett for his performance at the festival is expected to be signed soon.
Hotel tax?
Meantime, Mayor Higham reported at last night’s council meeting that the Southeast Regional Service Commission, the body that co-ordinates planning in southeastern New Brunswick, is moving ahead with a long-term strategy to attract more tourists to the area.
The mayor said he attended the commission’s meeting last month where he heard a series of recommendations based on studies conducted for the city of Moncton and the commission.
Mayor John Higham
The recommendations include creating a regional marketing organization governed by people in the tourism business to promote destinations in the southeast.
Higham said financing for such regional marketing would come from a four per cent tax on hotel rooms similar to one adopted in the Ottawa area.
He added that three-quarters of the tax revenue would finance marketing efforts with the rest going to improve tourism destination sites.
The mayor said tourism operators in the Sackville area favour a hotel tax, but he suggested much more planning needs to be done before regional officials can ask the province for legislation that would allow the four per cent municipal levy to be implemented.
Potholes and paving
Councillor Bruce Phinney read a report from the Engineering and Public Works Department that would not surprise anyone driving or cycling in Sackville.
“The harsh winter has taken its toll on the streets and roads around town,” Phinney said, “and we are experiencing a large number of potholes.”
He then moved a motion awarding a $276,000 contract for “street asphalt patching” to the lowest of four bidders, Costin Paving and Contracting of Amherst.
It emerged during discussion, however, that Costin originally bid more than $325,000 to supply 700 tonnes of pothole-filling asphalt, the amount the town had specified in its tender package.
Town engineer Dwayne Acton
Town engineer Dwayne Acton explained the town had to reduce the asphalt to 552 tonnes to stay within budget.
Acton was asked whether all of the town’s potholes can still be filled.
“We’re going to do our best to stretch the patching as far as we can given the road conditions,” he replied.
“There are several things that we do look at. There are some areas that have small alligator cracks,” he said, adding that the town will focus on potholes and broken pavement leaving the smaller cracks for another year.
In the meantime, councillors approved using all of the money the town receives this year from the federal gas tax fund for paving projects.
That means that $367,359 will be spent paving 1,000 metres of Walker Road, 1,000 metres of Stanley Drive, 135 metres of University Avenue and 85 metres of Hesler Drive.
A report from Sackville’s treasurer shows that since 2014, the town has spent $1.9 million in gas tax funds on paving. Over the next five years, it plans to spend $1.9 million more.
For Treasurer Michael Beal’s breakdown on gas tax funds and how they were and will be used, click here.
