Woeful aggregate royalties should go to Peel Street bridge

To the Editor,

I thought I might offer an opinion about a pair of current topics in our end of Woolwich, the Preston Sand and Gravel Winterbourne pit and the Peel Street Winterbourne bridge.

Our MPP Mike Harris and our premier have apparently gifted Winterbourne and Conestogo residents with the joy of 20 years of never-to-be-rehabilitated gravel extraction, upwind and within sight and sound of our communities.

I have been doing a bit of research through the murky and depressing world of aggregate extraction in Ontario. These companies pay virtually nothing for the resources they remove from us. It is a bit ironic that when applying for permits these companies tout what a valuable and essential industry they are, but then lobby hard and successfully when asked to pay for what they are removing.

Although a moving target, gravel fees are pitifully small. As best I could figure, property taxes on aggregate companies are the lowest of any and all industries in Ontario. Licences paid by these multi-million dollar companies are in the range of those paid by food trucks and royalties are pennies ($0.198) a tonne, which means that they pay us 20 cents for what they can sell for up to $20, a 10,000 per cent mark-up.

It is hard to know how much Woolwich will gain from the 2,100,000 tonnes of gravel to be removed over the next 20 years, but may I suggest that whatever amount it is be earmarked for the Peel Street bridge restoration project.

That gesture would be a small consideration for the misery that this open pit mine will bring to our communities for decades to come.