Dear Editor,
My family has lived in Guelph Eramosa for more than thirty years, and is now being swamped by the propaganda of a foreign corporation, Xinyi Glass. While Goliath Xinyi runs a series of advertisements that suggest that building an oversized, water-sucking industrial development near our family home will bring great benefits to our Township, it always fails to point out that this development will cause more harm than good.
Through its full-page advertisements and its letters to the editor, Xinyi fails to provide citizens of the Township with true information – they simply make vague statements that sound good to an uncritical public, but don’t actually mean anything.
In late March, Xinyi stated that it would be pumping out 1.6 million litres of water per day – and now it is stating that it will not be pumping out 1.6 million litres of water per day. How much is it really? You see, we all want to know the answer to this question, because we are on private wells here and this is a life or death issue for us.
While Xinyi protests that they will not build a third manufacturing line, and thereby increase their water taking to 2.4 million litres/day, their site plan application clearly shows that they plan to expand to a third line.
Farmers and residents have expressed their concerns about their wells running dry, and all Xinyi has to say in reply is that “they will make it right”. Yet they don’t tell us how they will make it right. The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change tells us that Xinyi will have to provide a remedy for our (now) dry wells, but also states that this is a long, drawn out process that requires a hydrogeologist to determine whether Xinyi is the source of the problem.
First, there would have to be a determination by a third party (neutral) hydrogeologist that my well was in the same aquifer as Xinyi’s (or affected by it) and also that Xinyi’s water-taking was the reason that my well had run dry. Assessing Xinyi as responsible is not automatic, and while I try to figure out who pays for the hydrogeology report, and Xinyi decides whether or not it will assume responsibility, I and my family are on our knees, begging for water. So how will Xinyi “make things right”…and how long will it take?
Carol Easton
Carol Maria Easton
