The Napanee Beaver, March 21, 2001

INTENSIVE FARMING
Role in hog farm meeting lands reeve in hot seat
Opponents raise issue at Stone Mills council

By Seth DuChene, Staff Reporter

Monday night, opponents of the prospective hog operation near Erinsville wanted assurances Stone Mills' review of the proposal is both independent and in-depth.

Representatives from the Concerned Citizens for our Community Environments, the group opposing farmer Mark Slack's proposed 1,420- sow operation, urged council to take an active role in assessing the project duringan hour-and-a-half-long presentation to councillors at Stone Mills' regular meeting in Centreville.

The group also questioned Reeve Jim MacDonald's role at a public meeting last Monday organized by Slack to address community concerns.

MacDonald served as chair of the meeting, which Jill Smith - one of the group's presenters Monday night - said jeopardized MacDonald's neutrality on the issue.

"These citizens and tatepayers wonder if this means that council will or will not take their concerns seriously," she told council.

MacDonald admitted he didn't take on that role lightly when Slack approached him to act as chair. But after further consideration, he felt that he could do the best job at keeping the meeting under control.

Further, he said those criticizing him for acting as chair of the meeting are "grasping at straws."

Some of MacDonald's council colleagues supported the reeve, sating they fely he did a good job heading up the meeting.

Smith also raised concerns about dropping property values, liability issues and 'the public good.' arguing that while farmers make up only 10 per cent of Stone Mills' economic base, the agricultural sector has a disproportionately high effect on the remainder of the population.

After the meeting Smith said that while the group was willing to give council time to digest the information presented Monday night, it would be taking council to task on the issues it had raised.

"There are questions still unanswered. We'll be asking them to answer them," she said after the presentation.

She also said the group is hoping to organize a public meeting of its own in the next few weeks.

The council also heard from Robert Scott, a member of the CCCE group who had a geotechnical background. Scott argued that council needed to be vigilant of Slack's proposal to ensure the farmer is complying with the township's intensive farming bylaws, and that the farm would not have a negative impact on groundwater.

He called on the township to require the proponent to conduct rock coring and well monitoring to provide those assurances before accpeting Slack's hydrogeology report.

He said a member of the community at large should sit on a committee to select who should be on the independent review team examining Slack's proposal. He also presented council with a "generic terms of reference" to cover the hydrogeological study of the project.

Councillors said they would indeed be vigilant of the proposal, but said the township only has so much legislative power it can wield in this situation.

While saying the proposed location for the farm "stinks" deputy reeve, Doug Bearance said simply banning intensive farms was not a legal option.

Council also said it was taking the 'independent review' concpet seriously, in contracting its own experts to look at the farm proposal rather than relying on OMAFRA's third-party review.