Aggregate danger: Quarries do not make good neighbours
Safety measures, oversight lacking, says Norma Moore.
Most people have never heard of flyrock, rock that is ejected from the blast site in a controlled explosion in a mining or quarry operation. It refers to rock that is propelled beyond the blast site, potentially causing injuries or death to people or animals and damage to property. It can cover distances exceeding one kilometre, and travel at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour.
Recent Citizen articles on aggregate activities by John Blais and Michael Mcsweeney compelled me to share some personal experience from a quarry near Ottawa. We have lived on the Braeside Ridge almost 50 years, adjacent to the Braeside Quarry, so are very aware of blasting accidents, four that we know of.
A megablast in September 2005 did considerable structural damage to properties in the neighbourhood; a flyrock incident in August 2007 did major damage to a home where the owner was almost killed. In another accident, flyrock fell on a neighbouring business's roof. And finally one accident occurred Sept. 10, 2021.
Living adjacent to the quarry, we had received notification some weeks before that blasting would occur in the quarry that fall, 2021.
I was working in my garden, (our property is about six acres), when I heard a warning siren/ beeping sound from the quarry. Thinking a blast was imminent, I sheltered behind a large oak tree until the blast had occurred. (We had not received any notification that a blast would occur that day.)
I went to the other side of our property where my husband had been during the blast. He had heard no warning of the blast, simply the blast, then a whistling sound and finally something crashing into trees, like the sound of shrapnel.
Naturally we reported this to the government ministries involved. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks did not look for flyrock, nor even interview the
Expansion of existing quarries and opening new ones is not needed.
witness. But the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry did investigate the quarry operation and discovered that the quarry had been in violation of its site plan for the previous five years. The quarry site plan is to be rigidly adhered to. The quarry had not been inspected in all that time and there were major, important violations.
Tony Sevelka, a real estate appraiser from Caledon, Ont. has made himself an expert on flyrock, after years of research on the subject. He has listed all the flyrock accidents all over the world involving injury or death, 139 of which have accurate distances from the blast site to the injury or fatality, including one in Coboconk, Ont. where a man was killed inside his living room when a rock penetrated his roof.
Apart from blasting accidents, our rural, residential community has suffered from the negative effects of a portable asphalt plant in the quarry from 2009 to 2011. Poisonous fumes, incredible noise and black dust prevented us from enjoying our outside property amenities, even invading our houses. The neighbours took the case to Small Claims Court where, even though we won, the costs to us were high.
There is continual fear that there will be a petrochemical spill in the quarry, contaminating and destroying the groundwater for the whole Braeside Ridge.
Opposing a mega quarry in Caledon, Ont., Sevelka has done an extensive body of research into the aggregate industry, publishing numerous papers. He says that in Ontario, an aggregate extraction licence has no expiry date, remaining operational for 100 years or more.
Aggregate companies claim that more aggregate is needed for growth in the building industry. In fact, there are enormous stockpiles of mined aggregate. Expansion of existing quarries and opening new ones is not needed.
Quarries reduce neighbouring property values at a considerable distance; homes closest are often not salable. The environment is exposed to noise, fugitive dust, toxic fumes, vibrations and flyrock as long as the quarry remains operational.
No one is saying we do not need aggregate. What we do need is adequate supervision, and setbacks large enough to protect human and animal life, property, groundwater and air quality.