To the Editor of the Wellington Advertiser: July 8, 2018
Re: the Xinyi glass-plant project:
Imagine our astonishment to learn that our Mayor Chris White did not read the letter sent from the City of Guelph CAO, Derrick Thomson, to GET township officials until nearly 6 weeks after it was received.
This letter, emailed May 9, from the City of Guelph CAO, expressed grave concerns about the Xinyi glass plant proposal, saying, “A water-taking of this magnitude has the potential to create well interference effects on the City water supply wells and in particular, our Queensdale well,…. the closest well to the plant…..The amount of water use proposed is significant, especially considering local water system impacts…..” “The report relies on future technical studies to be addressed through site plan approval and the permit-to-take-water process. Neither of these processes is an appropriate forum for determining permissions. It is the City’s view that the planning justification needs to directly address how a use that requires such a large water-taking can be considered “dry” in the context of the County Official Plan and GET zoning bylaw…” He also mentions many other serious concerns: “wastewater treatment and disposal, increased traffic, air pollution and emergency response…..”
At no time in public or private meetings did the Mayor White mention to us this negative response from the City of Guelph. In fact, in an email to “GETconcerned” dated July 3, he and another Councilor from Rockwood say they had not read the City’s May 9 letter until sometime “between meetings on the 18th and 27th” of June.
In March, the GET Mayor White called the proposed Xinyi glass plant a “game-changer” for the County and area. Two of the four cooperative GET council members concurred. This is surely the largest proposal to ever come before them, and they were apparently prepared to vote without recourse to full information, especially the letter from the City of Guelph.
These GET officials are elected to represent our interests, and to make informed decisions! Some (but not all) of the councilors seem negligent, if not asleep at the switch.
A newspaper reporter discovered the City’s letter and alerted people to the City’s negative response. We in the Township had been vaguely led by the GET officials to believe that there had been no response from the city at all.
To give background: Xinyi has tentatively purchased a 121 acre farm bordering on Highway 124 and 32, property directly outside the City of Guelph. Xinyi has asked for many Zoning-by law exemptions from the official GET land use plan. They initially stated that they needed to take 1,600,000 Litres of water per day for the plant, for at least 15 years, and maybe 30 (or, we can assume, as long as there was enough water left to support it). Their huge water-taking does not fit the official GET plan for “dry use” industrial.
Also, Xinyi asked for other by-law variances, including building dorms on site to bring some of their own foreign workers for this plant. They told us at one meeting that they needed to have their own firefighters on scene at all times because the gas-fired furnaces to melt sand into glass were dangerous. (If built, the Xinyi plant will be adjacent to Superior Propane, UPI, two chemical plants, and a gasoline station. Industrial accidents resulting in fires occur all too frequently, as Google searches document.)
As complaints from the GET public have mounted, Xinyi has kept changing their statistics, reducing the amount of water to be taken, reducing the number of trucks to be travelling on 124, increasing the number they propose to hire, stressing how ‘green’ they are, etc.
Xinyi has stated that their 4 – 6 wells will be 600 feet deep. The City’s Queensdale well is 230 feet deep (70 m), and most of the private wells of township people are 50 to 100 feet deep. Aquifers are interconnected, and fractures in them can allow water to move downward. In other words, Xinyi would be taking water from our deepest aquifers, threatening the water supply in the township and the City of Guelph. Worse, they would not pay anything for this water (unlike Nestle, who does pay a small amount for water they meter, plus they hire many local people). Xinyi would not hire many people since it is a highly mechanized plant, and they would spread hires over 3-5 years.
Google “world-wide water shortages.” Fresh water is not an inexhaustible resource. International firms now see Canada’s water as a valuable natural resource they can ‘mine’. Large companies are buying land worldwide to privatize and sell water, or to use it in manufacturing. There are already huge ground-water shortages in China, Africa, India, Australia, and the USA.
Xinyi wants to harvest our pristine drinking water for their manufacturing in Guelph. Our GET Mayor and Councilors will be voting on July 16 on whether to accept a Motion that rejects the Xinyi application on the basis that it does not fit our By-laws. Check this website for much further information, and sign the on-line petition: WWW.GETconcerned.org
Note: The internationally acclaimed author Maude Barlow will be coming to Guelph on September 12 to speak about the “looming water crisis posed by increases in the new Xinyi Glass Factory development added to Nestle’s water taking in the Guelph-Wellington area.”
Mary H. Rubio, PhD
University Professor Emeritus
Resident of GET Township
Date: July 8, 2018
I have greyed possible cuts for space.. alas, these did not come through! I can send separately.
Mary H. Rubio
