Agitated Rosser residents gathered last week at a public hearing to help determine whether a quarry proposed by landowner Heather Stewart is to proceed amid objections from locals.

Speaking for the objectors, Lyn Book –  a resident of the municipality, which lies adjacent to Winnipeg’s northwest boundary – read numerous e-mails aloud, all from aggravated locals imploring council “not to vote with dollar signs in their eyes.” Foremost on people’s minds were concerns over the removal of aggregates – mineral mixtures used in construction – negatively impacting water quality, agriculture and the overall environment.

The struggle to retain the unspoiled quality of their rural community was palpable among locals in opposition.

“Various factors continue to pull residents off the rural landscape,” said Ian Wishart in a letter addressed to council. “Those that remain do so … because of the lifestyle and environment that only a rural area can provide. The threat of noise, air, water and land pollution will inevitably degrade that benefit.”

Resident Doug Smee said he doesn’t know how council will vote or even why they would vote to approve the land to be used as a quarry.

“It would certainly bring in money … My family lives across the road so they are directly affected. I don’t see this [quarry] as needed. [Stewart] says she will remain local, but I don’t see that happening,” he said.

Consultant and aggregate expert Bob Sanderson said it would be environmentally irresponsible to nix the quarry as he tried to reason with the objecting locals, who muttered to one another in dissension. Sanderson focused on the benefits of quarries in general, which he said are required for civilization.

“Aggregates are basic building blocks for development,” he said. “We require them for all growth and to maintain the growth that we have. We cannot create them. We need to take them from where they naturally occur.

“I understand people have a lot of fears but look at the quarry in Stonewall.  It doesn’t impact the lifestyle of those people negatively. Their wells are not contaminated.”

The advocates of the project say that the limestone that would be extracted would be of high quality, but opponents raised doubts about this.

Sanderson said the environmental impact would be minimal and assured there would be “no scar on the landscape.”

Council should rule on the land-use application sometime in the next few weeks.

Published in Volume 64, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 17, 2009)