We are responding to Terry Raymond’s letter. Rocky View Gravel Watch is a grassroots organization representing over 400 County residents. Its steering committee of 15 to 20 volunteers includes lawyers, engineers, geologists, geophysicists, medical practitioners, policy analysts, management consultants, urban planners, wildlife biologists, and small business operators. I am simply one of its spokespeople, as are other members of the steering committee. It’s too bad Mr. Raymond wasn’t as forthcoming with his own background. He owns the land on which LaFarge operates the Glendale gravel pit SE of Cochrane and, as such, may not be the disinterested resident he presents himself as. His letter is full of misinformation. He states that there is no proof that silica dust is harmful. I’d suggest he read the Alberta gravel industry’s own 68-page silica control handbook. It opens with the statement that silica is associated with adverse health effects including silicosis, a potentially fatal lung disease and goes on to note that Alberta’s gravel has the highest silica levels in North America. For a shorter read, there’s the 10-page Alberta Occupational Health & Safety Bulletin on the risks of silica. Mr. Raymond correctly notes that more than 80 per cent of residents who responded to the earlier draft ARP recommended setbacks greater than those being proposed. However, he clearly has not looked at the submissions themselves – less than 40 per cent of those submissions are form letters. It is also easy to dismiss form letters that don’t support your own biases. They do take less effort than writing a separate letter, but people do not sign form letters unless they agree with them. As the landowner of a gravel pit, Mr. Raymond reiterates the industry’s sob story that setbacks will push gravel out of the county. Like his colleagues, he refuses to admit that elsewhere the industry deals with setbacks by getting agreement from residents within the setback distances. Rocky View Gravel Watch has never opposed relaxing residential setbacks if all the residents within the relaxation zone approve. The problem for industry is that this is much harder in more populated areas and they prefer to locate their gravel pits there to minimize operating costs and maximize the land’s post-reclamation resale value. Rocky View Gravel Watch has never been against gravel development. It has always acknowledged that gravel is necessary to modern life. However, open pit gravel mining and people are incompatible. Rocky View has ample gravel resources in its sparsely populated areas. Gravel should be directed to those areas. Unfortunately, this isn’t where Mr. Raymond owns land. Even as he accused us of fear mongering, he points out problems with gravel trucks. It is too bad that he focused on the irritants such as cracked windshields rather than the serious reality that gravel trucks kill people. Gravel Watch believes the county has a responsibility to ensure that land uses it approves do not impose more traffic on our roads than they can safely accommodate. It has repeatedly failed to do so with respect to gravel pit approvals. Janet Ballantyne On behalf of Rocky View Gravel Watch
