Dire consequences of Bill 185 and OLT on Skeleton Lake | Letters

Dire consequences of Bill 185 and OLT on Skeleton Lake | Letters

The OLT (Ontario Land Tribunal) meets on September 15, 2024, to consider an appeal by Lippa Quarry and Miller Paving regarding their proposed quarry. Please read the following to understand a few of the dire consequences should this appeal be approved. 

Bill 185, introduced to the Ontario legislature on April 10, 2024, along with the proposed Provincial Planning statement, erodes local democracy by making OTL a developers’ only tribunal, and handing the future planning of our communities over to the development sector and the non- elected. The public will have no say over projects that effect our lives and the environment such as harmful and unnecessary gravel pits and quarries. The OLT should also be held responsible for verifying the accuracy of the reports submitted.

In December 2023, the Auditor General’s report stated that “the management of the aggregate resources is in crisis, and the province is failing to protect the public from the negative impacts of gravel mining.”

Muskoka Lakes developed an Official Plan that would protect the environment.  That is being challenged by the Lippa Quarry owners and Miller Paving. If the OLT allows The Lippa Quarry to proceed, it will have a devastating effect on our communities forever. Lippa Quarry will be a MEGA quarry NOT a gravel pit. It covers 130 acres within the Skeleton Lake watershed. Blasting, & drilling below the water table, crushing and hauling rock. It will have an on-site screening plant, which will produce toxic silicon dust, which will escape into the air, resulting in serious health effects. It will use up to 250,000 litres of water a day drawn from local creeks to wash the extracted rocks, and this will be “kept contained behind dams”. When these dams break the run-off will reach Skeleton Lake via the many small streams.  OOPS! Just doesn’t cut it! The holes blasted out will be filled with discarded material trucked in from the south. This work will continue 6 am to 9 pm,7 days a week, for the next 80 years. They estimate that ten huge trucks an hour will be leaving the pit and travelling east 21 km to Hwy 11 or west 34 km to Hwy 400 through Rosseau, returning with discarded material.

Muskoka Road is classed as a scenic east to west corridor with many curves and small hills, it is 3 .7 metres wide with slopping gravel shoulders, it was built over 20 swamps and wetlands. Trucks tend to travel on the centre line. The solid yellow line goes from Huntsville to Rosseau except for two short stretches of dotted passing spots.

In the report, (drawn up by Skelton & Bromwell for Lippa), it states that the trucks could travel average speed of 90-100km. No mention that the current posted speed limit is 80km with signs for 60/70 around the many curves.

In their report, ( actually they call it uninhabited) there is little mention of the many people who live along Muskoka Rd 3 trying to exit their driveways, the school busses picking up children, the garbage trucks, the cyclists who use the road from Rosseau to Huntsville, the pedestrians walking on the shoulders,  the animals who live in the bush on either side of the road, the number of small creeks that go from the proposed quarry to Skeleton lake.

There are at least seven sources of gravel around this area, no quarry needed.

Skeleton Lake is listed as an ANSI lake (Area of Natural Interest). It is pre-glacial, formed by a meteor hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is the only lake in Muskoka which is mercury free.  The force of the strong vibrations from the blasting of the granite will crack and shatter the protective shell of the lake and let the mercury from the earth’s crust leach back into the lake water.

If that doesn’t do it, the thousands of tons of material being removed from the area will probably cause a shifting of the plates underground. (An earthquake happened in Wappingers Falls, New York in June 1974. Cause was determined to be the removal of tons of rock from a quarry nearby).

Not to worry!  If this quarry is approved, Muskoka Lakes will be compensated by $12,000 and the District by $3000. Sorry!  Huntsville, you get $0 and lots of trucks coming your way.  But you do get to help pay for road repair that is inevitable, added to your taxes. 

Muskoka depends on Tourism. If Skeleton Lake is polluted, so will the rest of the lakes from here to Georgian Bay.  Let’s hope the OLT does not let the greed of a few people today affect the future and health of tomorrow,                               

Concerned property owners Ted & Irene Turner

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4 Comments

  1. Christina MacBean says:

    How can we get updates on this? September 15 has now passed. I searched for it on the OLT website but didn’t find anything.

  2. Viv Ziner says:

    Tragic! What is the matter with our idiot politicians????

  3. Murray Christenson says:

    It would be helpful to know how people can have their voices heard over this potentially disastrous situation.

  4. Tracey Miller says:

    All gravel p
    pits and quarries in each community needs to be the responsibility and overseen by the each municipality ensuring the long time safety & protection of its lakes, rivers &
    water source and the environment.

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