New Lowell pit ‘rehabilitated’, but not cleared

With the surrender of an aggregate licence, Clearview council has lost the leverage it once hoped would result in the clean-up and removal of structures at the Lafarge New Lowell Pit on County Road 9.

Council has voted to lift the “hold” on 6372 County Road 9 and 2800 3/4 Sideroad, completing a process to change the zoning to rural and Environmental Protection. The Ministry of Northern Development, Mining, Natural Resources and Forestry have deemed the rehabilitation of the site acceptable as a condition of approving the surrender.

The issue has been discussed at council since 2017 when the previous council asked for commitments that the site would be cleaned up.

In 2019, council passed Official Plan and zoning amendments to permit the extraction of aggregate on 200 acres along the 3-4 Sideroad Nottawasaga, an extension to the current Avening Pit, but made it conditional on the clean-up of the New Lowell site.

Councillors Thom Paterson and John Lamers refused to support the lifting of the “hold” at Monday’s meeting, saying that condition has not been satisfied.

“I’m disappointed and I’m not sure with who. They said they would clean up the site in response to council’s request,” said Paterson. “I think they were being disingenuous. I think they were waiting for this and I for one am disappointed that they didn’t at least make an attempt to clean up the site.”