Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Where Does The Salt Go?":
I like the idea of a "runnel" to collect these toxins. What I can't understand is why it should be so expensive to skim off a bit of oil and residual matter.
Salt is most definitely the greatest toxin in the mix, and the millions you quote for cost would be well worth it if only it could deal with this substance. It is a pity that it cannot. I don't think writing it off as "a natural substance taken from the earth in the first place" is fair. Uranium and asbestos are both natural substances as well. In all cases they are fine if we leave them where we find them, but once we dig them out of the ground we have to take a little responsibility for them.
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I did not quote millions. The budget is half a million.
Salt is not in the same category as uranium and asbestos. As noted it can't be removed in a treatment system. No matter how many hard-earned tax dollars are flushed away in the endeavour...
This story started a number of years ago. During the council term before the last.
An environmental advisory committee was proposed by Morris and Gaertner and approved by Council.
The number of members were to be seven. Eleven applied. Eleven were appointed.
The Public Works Director was to be the resource person. I asked what he thought about that.
He said he didn't mind.
Next budget meeting ,he recommended hiring an environmental engineer at an annual cost of $100 thousand including benefits and equipment.
I asked what would be the job. "Identifying environmental initiatives" he said.
And attending environmental advisory committee meetings,I noted. He didn't raise his eyes when he nodded .
For several years after, at budget time, I asked about environmental initiatives identified. He was no longer with us.
There was never an answer. Just a bemuse look in my direction. I wasn't surprised.
The project now under consideration was approved in the last year of the last council, in an amount of $500 thousand.
$123,911. has already been spent." The design is in progress".
So if the question is asked again ;" what environmental initiatives have been identified" I guess this will be it.
Only it isn't.
In the Oak Ridges Moraine, home-owners can't build a patio in their yard without approval from the Committee of Adjustment after paying several hundred dollars for an application fee.
They can't put down a concrete pad for a garden shed without going through the same process
But the town is planning to cover a permeable gravel area with an impermeable concrete surface with a concrete runnel, to direct melting snow with a questionable measurement of salt into a treatment facility that will likely capture less than the gravel surface would, before the melt has any chance of reaching ground water. In the area,the run-off is far more likely to reach a stream of running water before it ever reaches an aquifer.
The amount of salt in the snow is not been measured. How much can there be after it melted ice on the few streets from which it was removed and ran down the gutters into catchbasins and from there into storm sewers.
In my view it's similar boondoggle,only at half a million dollar cost as the trumpeted "Right to Dry"campaign that brought us headlines in the New York Times. The tshirt bearing the logo is probably one of Al Gore's most precious mementos of his trip to Canada.
Yet there never was a prohibition on drying washing outdoors in Aurora.
There was a covenant on end units of townhouse rows. It stopped family laundry,(underwear and such), (well-washed or indifferently),(bloomers or thongs) from becoming part of the streetscape.
A purchaser with an urgent need to hang a clothes line always had the option of purchasing a unit without the covenant
The fact was not noted in news reports. All media love to shine the spotlight on an example of political idiocy.
But I digressed.
The item in the capital construction list presented at the August Council meeting, to spend a further $300 thousand on a concrete pad, a runnel and a treatment system that isn't was on the list in error.
The Treasurer assures me it will be removed until the decision deferred at budget time is dealt with by council.
The Treasurer was on vacation when $600.thousand was approved in part, for replacement of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, heaavy water use ice-making equipment and a working elevator that makes the building accessible.
Approval slid through despite an in depth council discussion that resulted in neither of the items being approved.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
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3 comments:
What is it about spending other people's money . I
had hoped that Abel & Thompson would firm up the
Mayor, that Pirri would be fun to watch grow
& that Sandra would come to believe she had a good
mind & use it. What a debacle! But there is still time
for them to review their literature and work on that little word No .
Let’s hope that the "Runnel" funnels all that salt from each and every catch basin in town to that parking lot, if not, this is nothing more than a feeble attempt to make everyone feel environmentally warm and fuzzy while all the while every ounce of salt makes its way to lake Simcoe , So far not one piece of factual information has appeared about how much salt will be removed from the runoff, Unless it’s all being treated by reverse osmosis forget the Funnels and the Runnels and stick to the gravel lot.
You are talking common sense Councilor , but then again what else is new
To Anon 6:48pm
Some of the mentioned are trying to be safe so re-election is possible.
It isn't right but it is politics.
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