Reading Comprehension Is Not As It Should Be

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I"m Fine Thank You":

"For more than thirty years neither Aurora or Newmarket has discharged clean and clear effluent into the carrying stream that leads to the East Holland River."

So it is okay to continue this practice? I don't think so. Just because we have done something for 30 years doesn't make it right!

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I publish the above comment to illustrate  lack of reading comprehension.We had that problem with leading council members in the last term.

The sentence quoted states Aurora and Newmarket have  NOT discharged  effluent into the East Holland River for more than thirty years.The commenter read the opposite.

But there was a problem. Waste water  treated in a tertiary treatment system , though clean and clear at the end of te process .is "dead" Ozygen has been removed . Dead water, in greater quantity than the capacity of the  carrying stream kills  live water.  Algae  multiplies.  Fish suffocate.

Tannery creek is a cold water stream . In the past, before urbanisation, trout were  plentiful. Upstream from the tanneries  of course.

The tertiary treatment system worked well. but in a flash flood, the gates had to be opened and raw sewage released into the creek. There were no storm sewers in the old town.Storm water filtered into the sewer system . The gates had to be opened to keep raw sewage  from  backing  up into  basements.

The town undertook to re-construct the  entire old town road system and separate storm and sanitary systems in the process. We completed the task  in twenty-five years.  Now it's complained that storm water is waste water.

Sometimes I think the only thing that would calm the vociferous clean freaks in the community would be for humans to abandon the planet .

When I was Mayor, the Ontario Water Resources declared the treatment plant at capacity. Development was frozen.

The oil crisis happened.

Interest rates climbed to double digits.We had no assessment growth to cover runaway inflation.

Farmers dumped dead cows at bank entrances and clogged city streets with tractors  to signify desperation.

Small  retail  business paid  more interest on a working overdraft than they earned.

It was a tough time.

We borrowed money. Bought Jack Woods farm  to develop a showcase industrial park.

And so it came to pass.

In time for someone else to take the credit and build that serpentine section of the Industrial parkway.

C'est La vie in Politiques !