Guelph Dolime public comment
The public has until August 13 to comment on the application by River Valley Developments Inc. to change a licence condition that would allow it to extract twice as much limestone from the former Guelph Dolime site west of the Hanlon Expressway.
Most of Guelph’s water comes from a permeable zone within the Amabel Formation which is locally referred to as the “Production Zone”. In places, the bedrock is overlain by overburden deposits – clays, silts and sands that were placed by glaciers. Rain water must first infiltrate through these formations to reach to reach the bedrock. Some of these layers are aquitards and water moves very slowly through these layers. The aquitards act as barriers to protect the deeper groundwater resources.
The issue as I understand it, is that by extracting more aggregate without increasing the size of the quarry means that the quarry floor (already well below the water table) will need to be pushed significantly deeper, posing two potentially serious problems for the residents of Guelph
1. Deeper excavation will result in increased dewatering at the quarry which may draw down the water table around the quarry and possibly affect City wells
2. There is the potential that a deeper quarry floor will breach the protective Eramosa aquitard which may lead to contamination of our primary aquifer.
This proposal has been posted for a 31 day public review and comment period starting July 13, 2007. If you have any questions, or would like to submit your comments, please do so by August 13, 2007
June 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I dont think we should allow them to extract more because of some of the consequences we may face if we do. Don’t take any chances, dont let them extract more.