Dear Editor,
Before we go all in as cheerleaders for the current round of proposals for the Industrial Park, let’s have a closer look at some aspects not mentioned in the MRC resolution and discussions:
- We are tending someone else’s garden, when we promote development on private property, owned by non-Pontiac residents. If it’s a good place for industrial location they can do that themselves. There are other sites in the Pontiac for light industry, sitting idle.
- Let’s not forget the past pollution of that site, which should be addressed before new developments are placed on top of possibly contaminated lands.
- The Environmental Report is slanted in focusing on greenhouse gases, in order to justify clear cutting. Definitely, clear cutting is the way to minimize GHG emissions per unit of wood mass delivered, but once you clear cut a forest, that’s it for this lifetime — it’s no longer a forest. It may be a mono-culture tree plantation or a sod farm, but never again a bio-diverse forest.
Most of Pontiac’s woodlands would be better suited to selective cutting which can be done repeatedly, every 20 years, by small-time loggers, which is our forestry labour force. Clear cutting with large machinery means fewer jobs for local people.
- There’s mention of generating electricity with biomass by products. So, the plan is, to burn wood to make electricity, in Quebec, between two hydroelectric dams, at a profit? Not likely. I suppose, that’s a case where somebody heard that can be done, as a way of dealing with by-products of wood processing. If so, it’s damage control, not ‘free energy.’ And it’s certainly not environmentally free. If you burn wood with a choked chimney you get pollution. You buy something for $18.95, you give a $20, you get back change, that’s all.
- The mention of heating government buildings with wood, I suppose that means wood pellets…? Items such as this are far too vague to evaluate the long-term efficacy of such a development. I’ve had to use the word suppose several times here, because the resolution is so vague that we must suppose. If the development goes ahead without such questions being raised and answered, there can be dire consequences, environmentally, and loss of confidence in the business and political community.
Robert Wills,
Shawville and Thorne
