WATER IS LIFE
The Canadian town of Tiny has the world’s purest water. A gravel mining operation could ruin it
Leyland Cecco in Elmvale, Ontario
Thu, November 25, 2021
Some of cleanest water in the world fell to the ground about 70 years ago, passing through smoggy skies that stuffed the droplets full of ash, soot, vehicle exhaust, chemicals and heavy metals.map of Tiny on Georgian Bay
It percolated through gravel, glacial silt and permeable rock and eventually gushed from a hose and into a pitcher held by Bonnie Pauzé.
The water shimmers in the morning sunlight as she pours a glass. “This is some of the best stuff on the planet,” she says, taking a gulp.
Moments later, she holds up a jar of turbid water. “And this is what it looks like when the companies start washing gravel.”
After years of careful analysis, scientists believe the Ontario townships of Tiny and Tay – just an hour and a half north of Toronto – have some of the purest water on the planet.
But the quirk of geology believed to have produced this water is also coveted by gravel mining companies, which have announced plans to expand operations. In recent months, the region has found itself at the centre of a mounting conflict, pitting the preservation of the water supply against the growing power of resource extraction companies.
Gravel quarries have operated in the area for more than a decade, but residents fear a planned expansion could prove disastrous to the region’s groundwater. The new 13.5-hectare Teedon Pit quarry atop French’s Hill – the towering mass of silt, gravel, alluvial soil and trees that scientist believe is the secret to the area’s pristine water – would see the soil and gravel layer stripped away by heavy machinery and trucked off to feed the construction boom in large cities.
Since 2009, Pauzé has collected samples in mason jars, documenting changes to the water that she and other residents say dovetails with the expansion of mining in the area. Some samples contain tiny flakes of silt suspended in water; others turn inky black when shaken.
A hydrogeologist commissioned by Pauzé and her husband, Jake, shares their belief the water-intensive process of washing gravel is responsible for intermittently tainting the groundwater with silt. That claim is disputed by the province’s ministry of environment, which suggests she has problems with her well.
In a statement to the Guardian, Dufferin Aggregates, part of Dublin-based CHG, said all operations “are conducted in line with all legal and environmental compliance requirements, including minimising water use through reduction, reuse, and recycling measures wherever possible”.
But such certainty is misplaced, said William Shotyk, a geochemist at the University of Alberta, whose family farm sits in the shadow of French’s Hill.
“The world’s leading authorities don’t fully understand the water,” said Shotyk, the first scientist to quantify the purity of the water. “And yet, we have aggregate companies saying they won’t affect the quality of the water.”
Until recently, the purest water in the world was believed to be that trapped thousands of years ago in Arctic ice. But in 2006, Shotyk and colleagues discovered water from his farm had a lead concentration five times lower than Arctic core samples – a result he still finds mind-boggling. At the time, there were only a handful of facilities in the world that could measure a lead concentration so low.
“This is not great water. This is not excellent water. This water is absolutely unique. This is a miracle of nature,” he said. “But we don’t understand how much water is there, where it’s coming from, how quickly it’s moving, where it’s going to and how Mother Nature created it.”
Today, Shotyk has a carefully designed facility to better understand the water. Researchers from all over have travelled to his small cabin to take samples. The team washes the equipment in acid, uses polypropylene plastics and have enclosed the spigots in glass cases to ensure ambient air doesn’t contaminate the samples. Subsequent testing has found the water has incredibly low concentrations of chloride and is devoid of any organic contaminants from nearby farms.
John Cherry, a leading expert on hydrogeology and founder of the Groundwater Project, speculates it could be a mixture of Pleistocene-era water trapped in clay deposits, as well as rainwater filtered down from French’s Hill and trapped in a handful of artesian aquifers, like on Pauzé’s farm. But he fears the ecosystem could be altered before scientists can fully understand the phenomenon.
“The last place that a civilized society should be doing aggregate mining is an area where the most pristine waters are found,” he said. “A lot of what we do that’s stupid – and aggregate mining on top of pristine water is quite stupid – is because groundwater suffers from more ignorance than any other of the water resources – [because] we don’t see it.”
With so many unknowns surrounding the groundwater of Tiny and Tay, scientists are pleading for five years to study the water and surrounding ecosystem before quarry expansion begins.
“We’re told that Canada has more freshwater per capita than any other country in the world and that we live in this wonderful freshwater haven. Water is cheap and so it’s very rare that we actually do anything as a society to protect our water resources for the future,” said Cherry.
Residents in the area have won previous fights. In 2009, the 50-acre (20-hectare) Site 41 landfill was scrapped after widespread public opposition, a victory made possible only with help from neighbouring First Nations.
Those Indigenous communities are now closely watching the fight against gravel quarries – and preparing for another battle.
“I do this for my grandchildren,” said Beth Elson of the nearby Beausoleil First Nation. “Knowing they’ll need clear water is plenty of motivation. Water is just part of us. And it’s to be looked after.”
Elson was a central figure in the fight over the failed landfill project, and travels often from her home on the pristine shores of Georgian Bay to perform water ceremonies in the area.
“You lift the water, you say prayers and sing songs and honour the water. We give some to Mother Earth, some to the fire and then we pass the water around. Everyone has a little taste to help us all connect.”
But she worries that this battle feels different from Site 41.
“I don’t know when [Indigenous peoples] will get to play our part in here … As neighbours, we’re just watching, but we’re often called on at the 11th hour,” she said. “We should have been blocking roads right off the bat. Not waiting until they’ve dug the holes. We should have gone in right when the first tree was cut.”
Pauzé says the faltering momentum of the fight, worsened by public health restrictions, has demoralized the community.
On a fall afternoon, walking beneath the maple, beech and hemlock stands that blanket the top of French’s Hill, Pauzé and local resident Kate Harries listen to the chatter of grackles swarming overhead – and the distant hum of the aggregate operations in the distance.
“We just want a pause on all this to really know what’s at stake,” said Pauzé. “We want to know why this water is so special.”
Harries agrees.
“If only for the history books.”
Quarry landfills started as a good idea a century ago, but are now a problem
Lauren Abbate, Bangor Daily News, Maine
Thu, November 25, 2021,
Nov. 25—ROCKLAND, Maine — A century ago, it seemed like a good idea. Quarries that dotted the landscape were being retired and there was a need for more landfills for waste. But decades later, the problematic nature of the rocky areas would become clear.
In the midcoast region for more than a century, a limestone deposit between Thomaston and Rockport was quarried for the stone's use in cement and other products. The industry was an economic driver for the region, but it largely fizzled out by the early to mid-20th century as the deposit depleted.
Left behind were the empty quarries that were beginning to fill with water.
"Trash disposal has been a problem since humans have urbanized themselves. The old solution has been 'let's bury it, find a hole in the ground and bury it.' So those quarries were dug as deep as they were going to get and they were there," said John Peckenham, an associate research scientist at the University of Maine's Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions.
Quarry landfills opened in Rockland, Rockport and at least one other Maine town. It's unclear exactly how many were once in operation in the state, but today just two remain.
In Rockland, a quarry landfill owned by the city is nearly at capacity and will be capped soon. In neighboring Rockport, a quarry landfill operated by Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corporation remains and is years away from closure. Both have been in use since at least the 1930s.
However, with these quarries containing both trash and water, what once seemed like a good solution has become a challenging operational and environmental problem.
"You can say the Rockland landfill to anyone, at any level of the [Maine Department of Environmental Protection], and they immediately know everything about it. It's the Jessie James of landfills. Everybody knows about it," said Chris Donlin, the interim director of public works for the city of Rockland.
Since quarries over time fill with water, the disposal of waste into them has been prohibited in Maine for decades. But the Rockland and Rockport facilities were grandfathered in and can continue to operate as long as the facilities comply with operational rules by the DEP that are aimed at mitigating environmental risks, such as the contamination of groundwater.
Very few quarry landfills are known to have existed in Maine, according to DEP spokesperson David Madore. Rockland had a second one, for instance, but that's been long closed. And a quarry landfill was also operated in Monson.
But in the century since their creation, the understanding of waste management practices and their impacts on the environment have improved.
Environmental experts now know that the presence of water in quarries ― or any landfill ― is problematic for trash disposal. It creates leachate, which is water that has come in contact with waste, and also makes compaction difficult and leads to problems with settling.
"Everything that's in there is a really thick soup. There is a lot of water in there and the stuff is almost quite literally floating," Peckenham said.
Modern landfills that collect municipal solid waste are built with liner systems, according to Peckenham, to prevent leachate from leaking out and contaminating groundwater. Those liners didn't exist in the quarry landfills. Peckenham said the bedrock walls of the quarries might actually cause the leachate to leak more slowly than it would other types of old, unlined landfills.
In recent decades, only construction and demolition debris have been collected in the Rockport and Rockland landfills. This type of debris is relatively inert ― meaning it breaks down slowly or not at all ― and can be collected in an unlined landfill under state rules, according to Madore.
To mitigate the risk of groundwater contamination, the DEP requires Rockland and the Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corp. to pump out enough leachate on a daily basis to keep the water level in the quarries below surrounding groundwater levels. The contaminated water is sent to a wastewater facility for treatment. The facilities also have to monitor groundwater near the quarries for signs of contamination.
Even when Rockland closes its quarry landfill, this pumping and monitoring will likely continue, according to the DEP.
These types of landfills will also continue to settle after they are capped so the cover system could settle and require maintenance. Unlike other more stable landfills, it is unlikely the quarries can ever be repurposed for a different land use in the future, according to Peckenham.
Rockland will stop accepting demolition debris at the end of the year and is working with state officials on a plan for final closure of the landfill by 2024.
In Rockport, current estimates predict that the landfill will be full in six years, according to Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corp. Facility Manager Michael Martunas. The facility's original agreement with the DEP included dates for closure, Martunas said. But he is currently working with the department to come up with a new document that will "define the life of the landfill" based on how full it is, in accordance with DEP requirements, rather than a specific date.
But even after the landfills are closed, the legacy of what once seemed like a good idea will remain.
"We were the 'Lime City' in the 1880s and now we have the proof of it," Donlin said.
