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THE OBSERVER | Saturday, June 06, 2009
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Sisters claim doubles tennis championship for EDSS..................................»15 A stop in the Spotlight Arts Fest
»21 VOLUME 14, ISSUE 22
SATURDAY, JUNE 06, 2009
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Piece of history slowly disappears
A BiT AT A TiME An excavator carefully removes pieces of the roof of the old steddick hotel on Wednesday afternoon. the elmira landmark has been coming down slowly as workers reclaim some materials.
photo | joni miltenburg
No plans to siphon rural water, region says Representatives dismiss claims of landowners’ group opposed to controls imposed by ESL designation JONI MILTENBURG The Region of Waterloo is not using Environmentally Sensitive Landscape (ESL) designations as a front for extracting water from rural lands, argued a pair of regional staffers who addressed Wellesley council June 1. Chris Gosselin, the region’s
manager of environmental planning, and Eric Hodgins, manager of hydrogeology and source water, countered claims from the Environmentally Sensitive Property Owners Association (ESPO) that the ESLs are a façade for the region’s water-taking plans. Glenn Baechler, spokesperson for ESPO, appeared before council last month asking the
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township to challenge regional government on the issue. The region’s long-term water strategy calls for the development of three to five million gallons per day of new groundwater supplies. Baechler pointed to a map drafted in 2000 showing 15 areas in the region identified as potential well sites, arguing it’s no coincidence a handful
of them overlap with the Laurel Creek Headwaters ESL. Gosselin told council the protection of groundwater supplies is only one criterion out of a list of 23 for an area to be designated an ESL. Gosselin said he was responsible for drawing the boundaries of the two ESLs within the region, and took issue with the suggestion that he was only look-
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ing to protect drinking water. “The issue of municipal water supply, I can tell you categorically, never once entered my head,” he said. “Even if the water were not an issue, the area would have qualified as an ESL.” Hodgins told council that the map Baechler referenced came from a preliminary
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