A Challenge for the Little Grey Cells

 Report IES14-036. on tonight's agenda is the history of  a plan for a snow treatment facility started with a budget of $250,000  under a  "Salt Management Plan" initiative in 2007.

It was soon after the Environmental Advisory Committee was appointed and the last Council
set it's path to Fame and Glory by  saving the world for future generations.

An environmental engineer was added to the payroll; "to identify environmental initiatives"

Every year at budget time, I asked what initiatives had been identified .

The budget  for the "snow disposal" project was doubled in 2009 to $500,000.

A consultant was retained for "site selection"and "environmental assessment " of a suitable location for "future snow storage."

The site currently being used  as a snow dump was identified as preferred.

 Hardly surprising. It had ben provided  to works by manager of parks, the man who knows most about potential sites in the town. Who would  likely be the source the consultant consulted in his
search for a suitable location and environmental suitability.

Lambert Willson Park permeable surface parking lot on the side of the Arboretum Ravine was
already The Valhalla of snow dumps.

"Snow Storage"  became "Snow Disposal" and a design for a "Treatment Facility " had been
completed ,I thought  at a cost of $168.000,  but currently reported at $135,000.

The report does not indicate date of  Council approval of a design for  a "Treatment Facility"

The last and final rationale offered for the treatment facility was "the dump is on the wellhead protection area"

But  it had  previously been given an environmental pass by the consultant.

I do not generally challenge engineering advice. But as I drove home that night from the committee meeting,the thought came in a blinding flash..... salt can't be removed from water.

I'm a slow thinker I guess . Later still it occurred that snow and salt do not co-exist.

If you have snow,you do not have salt. If you have salt, you do not have snow.

Further  discussion elicited the info salt wasn't the offender. Pathogens were.

Pathogens are dog excrement and windshield washer.

The budget had increased  twice by now.  To $750,000 and then  $850,000.

In September 2011  the project was  again deferred for a more detailed report from staff.

I was not a Councillor when the ravine was taken  by the town. It was obviously environmentally sensitive and not suitable for development

The  contract  to be awarded  to-night is for a road  and parking lot to be paved with asphalt, storm system installed beneath the parking lot with facility to separate oil and grit from melting snow.

The  project was approved by Council to be included in the  2014 budget without the report directed to be provided without further details.

Snow falls all over in winter. Probably ninety-five per cent is plowed onto boulevards. And there it sits frozen,until temperatures rise . Then it melts and disappears Without the help of salt.

Aurora's aquifer is deep. Separated from the surface by a massive  impermeable shield . Water in the aquifer has been carbon dated. It is fresh,clear and cold and thousandof years old. Oil and grit have
never in known history reached it's depth.


And to-night your council will be asked to spend almost $800,000. As an environmental initiative, to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.