Group to oppose ethanol plant in Oak Park North business park

12/15/2005

BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD

A month after a citizens' group forced a Brant County farmer-led co-operative to abandon its bid to build an ethanol plant in Cainsville, another group has formed to try to oust it from its originally intended location in the city’s northwest.

More than 100 people living around the northwest industrial area turned out Wednesday evening to an organizational meeting in Tranquility Hall of the new Citizens Concerned About an Ethanol Plant in Brantford.

The purpose was to lay the building blocks of a campaign to persuade city council, Brant MPP Dave Levac and federal election candidates in the riding to try to stop an attempt by Integrated Grain Processors Co-operative Inc. to build an 86-million ethanol plant on 48 acres in the privately run Oak Park North business park, north of Highway 403.

We have to keep pressure on local politicians, Brian Cook, a Governor’s Road homeowner who, along with his wife Susan, organized the meeting, told the crowd. It’s important that we stay united and oppose the location. There’s no use fighting ethanol. It’s already accepted and entrenched in government policy. But that spot is the wrong place for the plant. Residents are concerned about odour from the plant’s corn fermentation process, and the impact that rawing
water from an aquifer might have on the area’s water system and their wells.

Ilse Kraemer, a member of the environmental watchdog group Northwest Gateway Committee, told the gathering that the area where IGPC wants to build its plant has unstable geological formations marked by suddenly appearing and disappearing streams, abandoned gypsum mines up to 150 years old, a sensitive ecology and a system of three aquifers running through the area.

Not much is known about the aquifers because not a lot of study has been done. IGPC gained approval in principle from the last council nearly three years ago for an official plan amendment and special zoning that would allow the ethanol plant to be the only industry in Brantford to draw water from the ground.

At the time, only Coun. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith, the chairwoman of northwest gateway committee, cast the only opposing vote. She cited the committee’s concerns about drawing from the aquifer, the lack of scientific information about the area and the lack of approvals from key regulatory bodies.

Following a test, the co-op later obtained a water-taking permit from the Ministry of the Environment allowing it to draw 1,410 litres per minute from the aquifer. On Wednesday, Ceschi-Smith showed up at the meeting to say she and the committee still have the same
concerns. We don’t know enough about what happens if the aquifer is drained, she said. Does it collapse? We need to know more.

Another concern is that in the event of a fire there is no direct way to the plant. There are a lot of elements still to consider about the project. But my main issue still is, it’s water and you don’t play with water.

When someone asked her why council did not listen to the watchdog committee, she said: I am only one vote. We made our concern known at the time, but that council voted for the project. Since then, there has been an election and this council is different, but an agreement had been made.

The crowd applauded as she promised to take the group’s concerns back to council. Nico Reyneveld, who lives on Powerline Road, told the meeting that the water in his well dropped nearly four feet during the co-op's test, and the drilling stirred up sulfur in the aquifer.

IGPC agreed to replace his well system and, to get rid of impurities, supplied a sulfur tank, an iron tank and a softener system.

At one point, Brant Conservative candidate Phil McColeman rose to say: I’m here, very concerned as a resident and I want to listen to your concerns.

Strong concerns about odour and other perceived negative impacts of an ethanol plant led hundreds of Cainsville residents to successfully oppose the company's brief attempt to switch its intended location about a month ago.

Tom Cox, chairman of the co-op, said before Wednesday’s meeting that he knew the new group was forming. He lamented the co-op’s inability to get the public to understand that the state-of-the-art plant will have new technology that greatly reduces odour problems.
He also said the firm is frustrated about not being able to persuade the public that it had done all the necessary scientific work to show water can be safely drawn from the aquifer.