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LETTER: Petition looks to tap into support for pristine water

'If Stanley (the goat) can get over 7,000 signatures, surely our pristine water should be able to generate more than that across Canada,' reader says
Mike at Teedon Pit 1
Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner is shown at the Teedon Pit in Waverley - home to the world's most pristine water. File Photo

OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. The following letter is in response to a story, published June 18, titled 'Stanley supporters forging ahead with minor variance application.'
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Stanley the Goat was recently in the news. Over 7,000 people signed his petition for help. A one-year-old goat that lives in Tiny Township, he is a personal support animal that was threatened with removal due to a zoning by-law. The happy ending for Stanley is that he will not be forced to part with his owner.

There is another petition in Tiny Township that urgently needs public support. We have the Simcoe Uplands, near Waverley in Simcoe County, with the most pristine water in the world — water that has been tested for three decades and has been found to be the purest known to science. Petition e-3867 on the House of Commons website, being brought forward by our MP Adam Chambers, is currently at 1,817 signatures. The petition closes on June 30.

Details of the petition are as follows:

  • Ancient deposits under the Simcoe Uplands in Ontario’s Tiny, Springwater, Oro-Medonte and Tay townships contain pristine groundwater;
  • First Nations have long used this water in what is now the territory of Beausoleil First Nation of the Ogemawahj Tribal Council and Williams Treaties First Nations;
  • This water is the gold standard for water worldwide, a national and global treasure;
  • A gravel pit in Concession 1 of Tiny Township in the Simcoe Uplands is licensed to take 600,000 tonnes of aggregate annually and 6.6 million litres of water daily for 210 days and wants to expand;
  • Two adjacent pits have licences to take gravel and have applied for 10-year permits to take 1.6 million litres of water daily for washing gravel for 180 days yearly;
  • Ontario legislation applies minimum water quality standards;
  • Federal intervention is urgently needed to protect this exceptional water;
  • Removing vegetation, topsoil, sand and aggregate threatens this natural filtration system;
  • Leading Canadian experts propose a five-year study into how this purity is created and maintained; and
  • Research could help identify exceptional water worldwide and isolate natural features useful in purification systems.

Can you sign and share the petition? If Stanley can get over 7,000 signatures, surely our pristine water should be able to generate more than that across Canada.

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-3867

Anna Bourgeois
Brechin

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