Green Matters, Safety and Coffee

Watchers to Nestle: This Ain’t Over

After a disappointing permit renewal that will see Nestle Waters draw precious H20 from the aquifer in Aberfoyle for another five years, many observers expected the Wellington Water Watchers, at least, to keep up the fight. But a short deadline on the appeal, as it turns out, is only one of the reasons why the WWW opted out of further action.

“The Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) system is flawed, and we have decided there is no point in participating in a process that appears to be a window-dressing exercise,” explains Mike Nagy, a WWW Board member in a press release. Nagy cites the fact that his organization was excluded from a March 24th technical meeting as an example. “The MOE should have been leading these meetings and ensuring that all stakeholders were invited and able to attend,” Nagy adds. “It’s obvious to us that ‘the proponent’ has a vested interest in keeping specific parties – particularly those seeking restrictions – from participating.”

In it’s response to Nestle’s permit renewal, the Watchers were pushing for the Ministry of Environment to deny their request, or at the very least set in place measures through which the amount of water Nestle is allowed to draw, 3.6 million litres daily, to be rolled back on an annual basis. The only concession the Ministry made in the end was to only renew the permit for five years rather than Nestle’s request for 10. Regardless of the defeat Nagy says that he, and the other Watchers, will indeed be watching Nestle for those five years.

“We’re not going away,” he adds. “We’ll continue to do everything we can to protect our watershed, and to properly regulate this wasteful, unnecessary industry.”

Meet Greens

Having trouble deciding between who would best represent the local Green Party in this fall’s provincial election, then maybe getting up close and informal with them will change your mind. Both Mike Salisbury and Steve Dyck will available live and in person at the Hallman Room in Dublin Street United Church from 7 till 9 pm tonight. The setting is informal, and you don’t already have to be coloured Green to enter. “We are very excited to have a contested candidacy, a sign of our strength and momentum toward electing a Guelph Green MPP,” says a post on the Guelph Green website. “The next Provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 6, 2011 so we have 6 months to learn from past election campaigns and move The Greens forward in Ontario.” The Green candidate will be selected at the party’s AGM on June 7th.

Everything Falls Apart

In a rare and almost improbable move, the city closed seven "high risk" structures last Friday out of safety concerns. They include the standalone washroom buildings at Silvercreek Park, Margaret Greene Park, Hanlon Creek Park and Norm Jary Park, as well as the combination washroom/concession buildings at Exhibition Park and Riverside Park and the Riverside Bandshell. This is after the grandstand at Hastings Stadium was closed for safety concerns as well. What's the problem? Mario Petricevic, the city’s general manager of corporate building maintenance, says that the issue is the buildings' roofs, or rather the anchors that keep those roofs fastened to the walls of the buildings in sever wind. There are 34 buildings in the City that are deemed "high risk" and although the engineer didn't order the closure of those seven facilities, the City felt it necessary to act with an abundance of caution. In this year's budget, the City put aside $1.3 million for building repair. Some of the buildings will be able to be fixed right away, others have such extensive damage they'll need to be sent out for tenure.

Bean Lands at a New Location

It might be a Planet Bean before too long at this rate as a third Planet Bean location is set to open in the city’s south end. The new Bean will be based out of 1467 Gordon St., on the west side of Gordon halfway between Arkell and Clair roads, and according to the now-minted coffee chain’s co-founder, co-owner and head of marketing, Bill Bennett, expansion into the southside was a no-brainer. “We’re like coffee missionaries,” he told the Guelph Mercury. “We feel like south Guelph is devoid of excellent coffee, so we have to bring flavour to the people of south Guelph,” The original Bean opened in downtown Guelph in 1998, and its second location opened on Grange Road in 2006. So congratulations to the Planet Bean team on their continued success. Good to the last drop, I should say.

Scandal Amok

The Well Still Runs for Nestle

Much to the dismay and disappointment of environmentalists and anti-corporatists in the Royal City, the Ministry of the Environment approved a five-year renewal of the Nestle’s water taking permit at its Aberfoyle bottling plant. The good news is that the approval wasn’t for the 10 year stretch that Nestle applied for, but the bad news is that Nestle will be permitted to continue taking the allotted 3.6 million litres per day. Reaction was swift, but local advocates only have a limited time to make their appeal, primary among them the Wellington Water Watchers.

With a limited window to appeal, 15 days from when the decision was announced the Friday before the election, the Watchers quickly sprang into action forming a subcommittee to meet last Wednesday for a strategy session about the matter "The Wellington Water Watchers had made submissions to the Ministry of Environment and it looks to us that a great extent these submissions were almost ignored by the Ministry of Environment in the decision that they made," said Andre Hueniken, a Board Member of the Water Watchers.

The MOE for its part, seems to think that they have been conciliatory to concerns about the aquifer, limiting the permit to five years over ten “to allow a fulsome and ongoing review of monitoring data in a shorter time frame,” according to MOE regional director Carl Slater in the Wellington Advertiser. “It also allows for consideration of the water taking to be re-evaluated depending upon the local conditions and development in the area.”

John Challinor, the Director of Corporate Affairs for Nestle Canada, says that his company has no interest in draining the well, as it were. “When you invest millions of dollars in your plant like we do, you don't want your water source to be impacted,” he said to CTV. “You don't want it to go dry, you don't want to see a reduction, you don't want to harm your neighbours.”

This issue’s unlikely to go away, so stayed for more developments on the water front. (Get it! Oh, never mind. Next issue…)

  

Cam Says Bygones

From a bit of controversy of elections past, Ward 4 Councillor Cam Guthrie posted to the Mercury’s 59 Carden Street blog last week an apology to readers of the blog for posting comments using pseudonyms. “As most of you here are aware, up until last fall I had used other names to represent myself and I was wrong to do that,” Guthrie wrote. “I took swift steps to apologize to those I hurt outside of this arena, but I couldn’t do it individually to people here because I don’t know many of your real names. I want to rejoin you in the conversations here, but before I do that, I owe all of you a heartfelt apology and I wanted to ask for forgiveness.” Forgiveness seems to be what Guthrie has received, so we can now return to our regularly scheduled tirades.

Wanted: New Treasurer and Details

It was a bit under a cloak of secrecy last Tuesday night when, in an in-camera session of city council, mayor and council were informed that Chief Financial Officer and City Treasurer Margaret Neubauer had been terminated after nearly three years of service to the City of Guelph. Chief Administrative Officer Hans Loewig made the announcement to council, but said that there were few details he could release about the reason for the termination. “It is very difficult for us to say anything more than making a basic statement,” Loewig told the Guelph Mercury in a quick interview.

So what’s the story here? As of deadline, we’re still not sure. What we do know is that Neubauer will, according to Mark Amorosi, the city’s executive director of corporate and human resources, “receive an exit package in accordance with the Council approved Non-Union Termination Policy.” What does that mean? I refer you to the City’s termination without cause policy, which is defined as a termination “as a result of the employer’s decision to end the services of an employee for reasons including, but not limited to: reorganization, position elimination, inability of the employee to fulfil the expectations of their position.” So it’s possible that Neubauer was downsized, but a report in January said that her department was understaffed.

Neubauer is one of a number of City employees to leave their high-level positions in the last several months. I think at this point we can officially certify it as a mass exodus, but as to the cause, right now, that remains a mystery.

Anger Over Water and the Arts

The Wonders of Water Anger

It almost slipped by them, but the Wellington Water Watchers mobilized quickly and used Facebook to get public reaction and outrage to the possible approval of a 10-year contract extension for Nestle Waters in Aberfoyle. The new contract could be approved by the Province of Ontario as early as March 5th, and if allowed would permit Nestle to take 3.6 million litres of water per day from the Grand River watershed.

“This is far too long and way too much,” states Mike Nagy, former Green Party candidate and board member for WWW. “In fact, there are many aspects of this proposed Nestlé-Ministry of Environment agreement that should raise red flags for all Guelph-area citizens who care about water issues.”

And care they do. As soon as WWW changed the name of their Facebook group to “Oppose Nestle Waters Canada's ‘Permit to take Water’ Renewal Bid!” a tidal of wave of member reaction was posted to the site. “The water Nestle pays $5,000 for in Aberfoyle would cost $5 million in New Jersey,” said former Mayoral candidate and local provocateur Ray Mitchell. “Who is getting paid off, the Provincial gov't. or Guelph City Hall?” Michael Wright, another poster on the site, was even more curt. “Our water is not for sale - F*ck off Nestle.”

Emotions concerning Guelph’s water and the private corporations that want access to it have always been high. In 2007, Wellington Water Watchers was formed to combat Nestle’s previous contract renewal for five years at 3.6 million litres per day. After nearly a year of back and forth, the Ministry of the Environment followed direction from Guelph City Council and renewed the contract for only two years, but the litre per diem mark remained at 3.6 million.

“At the very most, the maximum volume of water allowed in any new Nestlé agreement should be no more than the maximum taken in 2010, which was 1.6 million litres per day,” Nagy says. “And then it should be reduced by at least 1.56 percent per year after that, consistent with Ontario’s initiatives on sustainable water use.”

The period for public comment about the renewal closes today, and a decision could be made about the renewal as early as March 5th. To learn more about WWW’s objections to the permit and find out how you can help their cause, go to http://www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca

…Speaking of Negative Reactions

Last Tuesday was the public’s chance for input into the 2011 operating and capital budgets, and wouldn’t you know it, a lot of that reaction was of the negative variety towards transit’s service cuts and fee hike. The sum and total of the (stated) public reaction can be found on my blog at http://guelphpolitico.blogspot.com/, but the point is, it wasn’t all about transit.

Yes Virgina, the people of Guelph had other things on their minds about their city and how their local government spends money. For instance, Anastasia Ziprick spoke to council on behalf of several major arts festivals including the Guelph Jazz Festival, the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival and Hillside, remarking about how rental fees on the River Run Centre need to be lowered. Ziprick said that it’s hard to deal with mounting expenses and if fees at the River Run’s Co-operators Hall aren’t reduced, then the Jazz Festival may have to relocate.

Sandy Ferguson-Escott spoke next on behalf of the Guelph-Non Profit Housing Committee. She was looking for tax relief on the GNPHC’s development on Paisley Road. The problem for GNPHC is that they got a bad deal when the project was developed in 2005, which prevents them from seeking additional revenue by transferring it over from one of their other eight sites. Without the tax relief, Ferguson-Escott said, there won’t be enough money to pay for the bills, and the project will be effectively bankrupt.

On another subject, Konnie Peet, Executive Director of the Guelph Community Health Centre on behalf of the Wellington-Guelph Drug Strategy Committee, asked for $30,000 in new funding from the City and the County of Wellington in order to hire a co-ordinator and help fund overhead costs. This money would be an annual budget line item to help the WGDDSC with its outreach, treatment, harm reduction and prevention programs.

Before the end of the night, Guelph Chamber of Commerce President Lloyd Longfield took the floor to state his concerns about the City’s hiring of 87 Full-Time Equivalent positions saying that most businesses are continuing to act with an abundance of caution in these early stages of economic recovery. He also added that as much as he wants the City to help foster industrial and commercial development, he also wanted them to keep in mind residential growth, as many of the businesses he works with are telling him that they’re looking outside the city limits for skilled, and professional workers.

Run Cam, Run? And Water Day

Cam’s Thinking about Running, Not there yet though

An internet movement’s begun over the last few weeks to push a certain well know Guelphite and politico into the recently initiated mayoral race, but Cam Guthrie says that no final decisions have been made yet. “It’s weighing heavily on me right now because of all the phone calls and e-mails and people stopping me on the street,” Guthrie told me by phone last week. “Whatever decision it is it will be in the best interest of my city and my family.”

The buzz comes from a Facebook group called “Cam Guthrie for the Mayor of Guelph”, which was started barely a week after the city’s present mayor, Karen Farbridge, announced her intention to run for re-election in this fall’s municipal contest. Guthrie calls it an encouragement page, but one that he had nothing to do with. Instead, credit for the group can be given to Karl Morant. “The first time I ever met him was in the [2006] municipal election,” Guthrie recalls. “I’ve probably had four conversations with him on passing over the last four years.”

As of last Wednesday, Morant and his group have collected 239 members and counting. Guthrie admits that he’s recognized a few of the names that joined the group, but there’s also a great many he doesn’t. “I am very humbled by the encouragement and support that’s sprung on this thing in the last couple of days,” he says. “It’s just amazing.”

The question now is whether or not that encouragement is going to translate into a bid for the City’s highest elected post, Guthrie’s still mulling the possibilities and gauging his support. Guthrie says he’s seeking “wise council” in order to make the right decision for himself, the city and his family.

As for a timetable, Guthrie told me that his decision will be coming soon, if only out of practical consideration in running a mayoral race. “Unfortunately, these types of campaigns require money to run, and, of course, the sooner you declare yourself the sooner your able to start bringing in money for the campaign. So I can’t let it go too long.”

You can check out the Facebook group by searching “Cam Guthrie for the Mayor of Guelph.” And for late-breaking news, you can visit my Guelph Politico blog at http://guelphpolitico.blogspot.com/

Celebrate World Water Day with Wellington Water Watchers

Do you like water? Do you think the ubiquitous clear liquid should be celebrated and protected throughout the land? Then you’ll definitely want to take note of the Wellington Water Watchers’ festivities for World Water Day on Monday.

The events unfold at the E.L. Fox Auditorium at J.F. Ross on 21 Meyer Dr starting at 7 pm. On the docket is a youth submission project, some spoken word performances and the party-hardy music of Royal City’s own Dancehall Free For All. The main attraction though, entertainment-wise speaking, is a screening of the as-yet-unreleased documentary Tapped. Tapped, made by the producers of the popular Who Killed the Electric Car doc, is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize water resources. You can learn more about it at http://www.tappedthemovie.com/

The WWW will also be unveiling a pilot project called Blue W. Blue W is a not-for-profit program dedicated to promoting municipal tap water as a healthy and waste-conscious alternative to bottled drinks, according to a press release. The project will include a web site and smartphone app that people can use to locate places in the community where you can fill your reusable bottle with tap water. Participating establishments will have the Blue W decal at their entrance. For more on Blue W check out their website at http://www.bluew.org

Emotions Stirred at Community Meeting

It was billed as a discussion and a dialogue, and sometimes that was the case. The Guelph Civic League hosted a town hall-style event last Thursday in Norfolk United Church, where members of the community were invited to hear from all sides about the issues involving the development of the Hanlon Creek Business Park. It was a packed house, as evident by the fact that more and more chairs had to be brought out to accommodate the masses. Clearly this issue has struck a chord in the public, and though the atmosphere was mostly collegial, there was something else there under the surface.

The panel was made up of Judy Martin (Sierra Club Canada and Guelph Urban Forest Friends), James Gordon (Wellington Water Watchers), Matt Soltys (Land Is More Important than Sprawl), Councillor Lise Burcher (Chair of Community Design and Environmental Services Committee, City of Guelph), Peter Cartwright (General Manager of Economic Development and Tourism, City of Guelph) and Lloyd Longfield (Guelph Chamber of Commerce). The panel was kind of split up along Crossfire lines. Everybody had five minutes to open with their point of view, comment on they’re position or their organization’s position and maybe wrestle with a Power Point presentation.

During the Q&A portion was where the civility of the evening suffered the biggest threat of fracturing. Cartwright, and to a certain extent Longfield, took the brunt of the questioners’ tone. Many seemed to suggest some sort of conspiracy theory on the part of the city to get the HCBP done as quickly and quietly as possible. A third year zoology student from the University of Guelph accused Cartwright and of his office of denying her the chance to study the Jefferson Salamander in the HCBP site, and that he’s been ignoring her phone calls and e-mails. Cartwright responded that he’s done no such thing and the reason she was denied access to the site was for a liability issue. Panellist Gordon riffed on this statement later when he said that he didn’t realize he was a liability issue when he’s gone there to walk the grounds.

But of more universal concern was a lack of information about the current plan, or the fact that this plan is being pushed ahead in spite of the fact that there are currently no tenants lined up, or just generally the prevailing economic conditions. Also mentioned was the prevalence of brownfields and the increasing number of vacant industrial areas in the city limits. The question was why do we need to lose more greenspace because of all these factors, to which Cartwright said that the point was to have a “good product mix” for potential businesses in the city.

As the meeting wrapped, it seemed that the civil feeling of the room was sort of encountering a rough patch. Obviously, with everyone piling on the city staff, things seemed to be a little one-sided. Burcher was the last one to speak during the one-minute wrap-up, and she got a “Shame” and a “How about you listen?” in response to a couple of her comments. Clearly, many of the people at the meeting were of one mind on the issue of this development, if not development generally. While some agreed that development, to a degree, was necessary, others were emphatic in their belief that any amount of development on the HCBP site is too much. This debate is far from over.

In memoriam…

By the time this hits newsstands, the Family Thrift Store will be no more. Despite the protests and the lamentations and the media attention, Ray Mitchell’s mecca of all things practical and curious shuttered its storefront after a week long celebration affectionately called “Thrift Stock.” Bands like Evan and the Sad Clowns, The Magic, The D'Urbervilles, Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy, The Saltlick Kids, Richard Laviolette and His Hollow Hooves, The Neutron Stars, and The Burning Hell all played sets during the seven night celebration. Family Thrift Store: you will be missed.

The Fight’s Not Over for Water Watchers

The Wellington Water Watchers celebrated not just a year of existence, but a year of triumph last Tuesday night as members gathered at Norfolk United Church for the group’s first AGM. The WWW started making waves last summer (pun intended) by coming out strong against the Aberfoyle Nestle Bottled Water plant’s application for a five-year renewal of their contract.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of the Environment announced that they would only be renewing Nestle’s contract for only two-years and part of the new contract is the requirement for better monitoring of the Mill Creek, from which Nestle pulls it water. As well, the Ontario government is considering making the Galt-Paris moraine protected land. “We’ve had some real successes and we have some really ambitious plans too,” WWW Board member James Gordon told the crowd.

Amongst WWW’s ambitious plans is to expand its “Klean Kanteen” program. The stainless steel canteen is free to everyone when they buy a membership in the WWW, which includes over 750 Guelph and area residents. But now, the group is looking at putting their canteens into the hands of every kid in the county as part of an overall campaign to promote tap water over bottled.

Two other components of the plan are “Emergency Use Only” and “L’Eau Municipal.” The former is a guerrilla promotion gimmick wherein WWW is encouraging members to really enforce the idea of bottled water being reserved for emergency purposes; bottled water being of primary importance in situations where the tap water’s been compromised. The second part, “L’Eau Municipal,” will be a campaign working with local restaurants to push the serving of tap water over bottled in their establishment.

Basically, the group is going to throw their focus on reversing the trend, pervasive in this generation, that carrying around and drinking water out of a plastic bottle is cool. Beyond that, the notion that bottled water is cleaner and safer than what comes out of the tap is a popular myth that WWW wants to dispel. One member held up a plastic water bottle and said that he considers the contents “plastic water” and reinforced the toxic effects these bottles have on our environment.

The evening was rounded out with a speech by activist, author and Blue Planet co-founder Maude Barlow, who had high praise for the group she calls part of a growing movement of “water warriors” and that WWW is an example she cites in her speeches worldwide. She reinforced the need to protect water from encroaching elements who want to see its commoditization, particularly NAFTA. Barlow’s speech was followed by a screening of the new documentary FLOW: For the Love Of Water.

Greens got a plan

Following-up to my interview with Elizabeth May in last week’s Echo, here are some details of the Green meeting at Guelph Youth Music Centre on May 26. The main point of the event was a kind of rally to garner local support and get May into the next televised leaders debate in the eventual Federal election.

Drawing on history, May hopes that if Guelph Green candidate Mike Nagy were to make it to the House of Commons via a by-election, than a sitting Green MP would force the hand of all those keeping May out of the debate. The same strategy worked for Preston Manning when, as Reform leader, he was invited to the 1993 debates after Deborah Grey was seated in a by-election in Alberta.

May also spent the day canvassing in Guelph neighbourhoods along with Nagy and former Green leader Jim Harris. Harris remains a consultant for the Green Party and participated in the event by enthusiastically getting members to commit to 40 hours of campaigning for Nagy when the writ is dropped.

Still no sign of that happening though.

Heat Still on Over Water

The decision to allow Nestle Water a two-year permit renewal to keep taking water from Guelph’s south end continued to reverberate as the provincial government proposed the idea of charging a “token” fee for companies to bottle Ontario’s water last week.

"We've kind of put in a floor and we've begun to attach a real value to a natural resource, water," Premier Dalton McGuinty told the press before a Liberal cabinet meeting last week. "We're looking to see what we need to do in the future to attach value to that resource."

That “floor” McGuinty talks about is a $3.71 charge for every one million litres of water taken out of Ontario’s lakes and rivers. Environment Minister John Gerretsen later added that the fees “are at the low end” of where they need to be, but at the same time said that the government is not about to put an actual price on water.

But a price is what a lot environmental activists would like to see as companies like Nestle can take as much water as permitted for free, bottle it and resell it for profit. For a $3,000 application fee, the Nestle plant in Aberfoyle is allowed to pump 1.3 billion litres per year; enough for over 27 million 24-pack cases of water.

The debate in Guelph started last summer when Nestle applied for a permit renewal that would have allowed them to continue taking water from the Mill Creek for another five years. Nestle has been operating in Aberfoyle since 2000 and all previous permits have been for a duration of two years.

It was at the suggestion of a five year permit that the activist group Wellington Water Watchers sprang into action last summer.

"People like ourselves are trying to raise the alarm bell about the privatization and commoditization of water," WWW member Mike Nagy told me last summer. Nagy is also the Federal Green Party's Guelph candidate and environment critic, "Water taking permits were never intended for people to make money off of the water."

In response to the Ministry of the Environment’s decision to only renew the permit for two years, the WWW expressed mixed feelings. “While we would like to stress that, in our view, any permit granted to a commercial bottler to take public water essentially for free is squandering a precious public resource; we are nonetheless pleased that the MOE has reduced the requested timeframe,” said a statement on the WWW website.

As evidenced by the province’s recent announcement, this is an issue that’s far from over. People are becoming increasingly concerned about not just who’s taking their water, but what’s happening to the waste generated from all those plastic water bottles.

Even in the shine of their semi-victory, the WWW promises to continue their activism to secure the city’s water. “This two-year time frame will give our region the opportunity to properly plan for the management of municipal water supplies to accommodate our rapidly growing population,” their website states.

Get on Board

The City of Guelph is looking for interested people to fill a couple of Board vacancies. There are two spots open on the River Systems Advisory Committee, while the Board of Commissioners of Guelph General Hospital and the Guelph Junction Railway Company Directors each have one spot open. For more information, you can visit the City of Guelph website at http://guelph.ca//news.cfm?itemid=75103&task=display

Be Careful of Bus Changes

As your travelling around the Royal City on Guelph Transit, keep in mind that a few routes are being affected by detours. The #54 Arkell will be diverted from Arkell Rd. between Summerfield Dr. and Gordon St. through to Friday May 2nd and the #8 General Hospital will redirected to Paul St. from Delhi as construction’s being done on Emma until Mid-July. Also, the extra frequency buses to the University of Guelph are on hiatus until September. Maps of route changes can be seen here: http://guelph.ca/living.cfm?smocid=1764