file: hidden quarry/OMB Participant Statement WITNESS STATEMENT Blasting and Our Concentration of Heritage Stone Structures Glen Duff 14267 4 th Line Nassagaweya Rockwood, ON N0B 2K0 SLIDE 1 My name is Glen Duff and I live at 14267 4 th Line Nassagaweya where my wife Sharon and I operate a family farm SLIDE 2 with income generated by hay sales and breeding stock from a highend flock of registered Rideau sheep. We participate in sheep research and teaching of veterinary students by Professors from the University of Guelph School of Veterinary Medicine. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry I began work in the pharmaceutical industry and I am therefore very familiar with well-designed scientific studies with a high degree of reliability that incudes legitimate peer review. I served 4 years as an elected Board Member of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario where I led the Issue of clean water and agriculture and I am also a past member of the Board of the Ontario Farmland Trust. SLIDE 3 Our 19 th century farm is located 1.2 km from the site of the proposed Hidden Quarry. During the last 10 years of my business career I was appointed Vice-President of Issues Management for the Canadian operation of a large Swiss multinational and received extensive training in Issues Management in Switzerland and the U.S. and travelled internationally consulting on Issues Management. Issues Management attempts to achieve an in depth understanding by clearly defining, understanding and prioritizing issues and creating a strategic action program based on the following stakeholders: 1) Who pays? 2) Who benefits? and, 3) Who takes the risks? Inevitably these questions rarely affect the same parties or organizations. 1 My specific topic today is “Blasting and Our Concentration of Heritage Stone Structures” of which we have many located close to the proposed Hidden Quarry site. However, there are many other compelling reasons why I believe the Hidden Quarry proposal must be rejected. I fully understand the need for aggregates and their importance to all of us and therefore the need for pits and quarries but I do not understand the need for quarries 1 Glen Duff, Presentation at the University of Guelph,1995 [1]
file: hidden quarry/OMB Participant Statement adjacent to high population centres like Rockwood and placing at risk a significant concentration of heritage structures. My three management questions can be applied to the heritage buildings in the vicinity of the proposed quarry. 1. Who pays for heritage maintenance? 2. Who benefits from the quarry blasting? 3. Who takes the risk? As you answer the questions, you will understand the concern of our group. In preparing this participant statement, I consulted with 12 other landowners who, like myself, are within a very restricted 2000 metres of the proposed site. Every one of these landowners shares my concerns about the stability of these structures with blasting in the area. SLIDE 4 I have submitted to the OMB with my participant statement a detailed inventory 2 of 13 heritage properties located in the vicinity of the Hidden Quarry, of which 11 are privately owned. Ten of these landowners participated in an in-depth survey of their properties with details of their history and architectural details documented and photographed in a report submitted to CRC. This report also includes SLIDE 5 a map of the location and distance of each property from the proposed quarry site. Each property has one or more structures of 19 th century heritage buildings. These are primarily stone houses with stone foundations and/or stone barns 3 or bank barns with stone foundations all of which are highly vulnerable to structural damage as a result of repeated vibrations secondary to blasting. Some of these structures have been referenced in local, national and international publications- For example, SLIDE 6 the classic 1853 stone barn on the Weil property in Nassagaweya complete with a SLIDE 7 hay-wagon lift, and the SLIDE 8 1843 stone barn, painstakingly restored, on the Felber property, also in Nassagweya. SLIDE 9 The Rockwood Academy, one of Ontario’s oldest boarding schools featured in the movie “ Agnes of God ” , is now owned by the Ontario Heritage Foundation. SLIDE 10 St. John’s Anglican Church, built in the early 1880’s is a n elegant landmark in Rockwood. _______________ 2. Cultural Heritage Inventory, June 2016, Cheryl Holmes, Perry Groskopf, George Marsh and Linda Sword 3. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/barns/ [2]
file: hidden quarry/OMB Participant Statement SLIDE 11 The McNabb Farm in Eramosa is a Century Farm, in fact new plaques SLIDE 12 make it a sesqui-centennial farm for the many generations of this family. SLIDE 13 The Sargent Farm stone (1861) and bank (1895) barns are a legacy from jazz great Peter Appleyard whose SLIDE 14 last concert took place in this acoustically perfect barn in 2013. SLIDE 15 And the Webster-Doyle home in Nassagaweya, just 900 metres from the proposed quarry site has just this spring received an award for heritage conservation work and SLIDE 16 outstanding renovation from Heritage Milton. In a local historical publication the author states “One can argue that barns have joined the ranks of endangered species in Ontario. Urbanization and changes in the agricultural economy have caused many farmers in Canada to abandon their farms, many of which were generations old. On those surviving farms, new barns have been built that lack the cultural and architectural interest of barns from earlier years. Generally speaking, there are no preservation groups supported by wealthy societies, heritage trusts or g overnments to fund the purchase or painstaking and costly preservation of these barns.” The responsibility and cost for preservation of such structures that benefit our community and province with this cultural landscape now and for future generations is through the generosity of the private owners. One element which puts these older structures at risk is the composition of mortar used in the 19 th century. SLIDE 17 Some stone masons call it ‘dead mortar’. When asked about 19 th century mortar, Laurie Wells, an experienced restoration architect, stated: SLIDE 18 “ Old mortar used in the construction of local stone buildings lacked the “resiliency” of modern mortars. This is caused by the use of ‘at hand’ materials including ‘unwashed sand.’ This lack of resiliency causes the mortar to degrade over time (and all the buildings on the CRC heritage list are well over 100 years old) making the mortar susceptible to fracture and disintegration. Vibration from mining/quarrying operations will result in cracking/fracturing of the old mortar in wall foundations of these bui ldings rendering them ‘unstable.’” 4 Only stone masons specializing in heritage restoration can duplicate the particular quality of the mortar required to ‘work’ with the stone. ___________ 4. Ms. Laurie Wells, Old World Stone owner and consultant throughout North America on the restoration of old buildings, (Canadian restoration architect living in Nassagaweya in an historic stone school house) Interview 2016 [3]
file: hidden quarry/OMB Participant Statement In reference to the potential impact of blasting, William Hill Mining Consultants Limited (WHMC) states that “ blasting, especially underwater blasting in the region’s porous karst bedrock formation, will send strong vibration waves up to 2.5 kilometres from the site. ” 5 WHMC also projects in its witness statement to this Hearing significantly different conclusions from the blasting effects presented by James Dick Construction based upon one unidentified site. These differences are likely the result of data obtained in different rock material than that of the proposed Hidden Quarry. The WHMC work disputes the validity of the prediction formula employed by JDCL and makes the case of a more relevant reference based on the Miramar, FL quarry in Dade County and the following data have been calculated from the formula using the proponent’s blasting loading of 150 kg per delay. SLIDE 19 In this chart are listed the distance in metres from the blasting site relative to the peak particle velocity per second caused by the blast. The closer to the blast, the higher the peak particle velocity or, in layperson’s terms, power of the vibration. D(M) PPV (mm/s) 400 40.40 425 37.57 500 30.91 600 24.84 700 20.64 800 17.59 900 15.27 1000 13.46 1250 10.29 1500 8.27 1750 6.87 2000 5.86 _______ 5. William Hill Mining Consultants, 2016 [4]
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