But first, they’ll have to get by the Lambton-Middlesex Landowners Association;
Doug and Sheila Thompson own and operate Thompson’s Hardwood, a sawmill specializing in the milling and harvesting of hardwood lumber. The company employs between 25 and 30 people, most of whom are residents of the area.
Doug Thompson — who with his wife took the mill over a number of years ago from his father, Dean Thompson — said the MOE recently notified him that they would be entering the business on Feb. 22 to do an “air facility inspection.”
Thompson said this has become a problem for his industry, adding that the ministry had recently shut down eight sawmills in Eastern Ontario following similar inspections, an issue the Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) has taken up on behalf of private sawmill owners.
“They’re saying sawdust is a pollutant, but as far as I can see top soil is basically sawdust and rotted trees,” said Thompson, who added that he sees it as just an excuse to mandate a bunch of new equipment that the business doesn’t need and can ill afford.
[…]
When MOE officers Whiting and Hutt arrived, they were confronted by an enthusiastic but peaceful crowd that blocked their entry to the premises. Hutt spoke to the Thompsons and told them that under the Environmental Protection Act he had the right to enter the property and conduct an inspection of the facility.
[…]
After considerable discussion Hutt said: “I know I haven’t got a chance in Hell of getting into this building today.”
h/t Louise
This has nothing to do with air quality. It is about transferring industry, jobs and wealth to China. Somewhere along the line the West lost a war but we weren’t told about it.
Amateurs.
The U.S. Indians in Caledonia would have occupied private property and beat up/kidnapped someone by this point.
Ontario’s MOE also hassles saw mill operators over piles of saw dust. MOE claims it is a soil and water pollutant. This is what happens when society has people in authority who have no connection to the land or making a living from the land and no understanding of those who do.
mississauga matt, if there were a “like” button, you’d have one from me.
This is about justifying too many regulations and the over staffing of MOE’s enforcement branch. Each inspector has to investigate and lay charges against someone, every month, or they’re called on the carpet. The Ministry of Health closed down 800 small Ontario food producers a few years ago for the same reason — maple syrup producers, sausage makers, etc. etc. — on the grounds they didn’t have up-to-date equipment. Heavy-handed enforcement always follow over regulation and over staffing. But that’s what you get with Liberals.
The government has failed to brainwash us so now they are resorting to bureacratic thuggery to implement their global warming ideology. If that doesn’t work don’t be surprised if they resort to violence. The cops at Caledonia have been well trained in harassing and arresting innocent people,raiding sawmills would be a cakewalk.
These people are not qualified to inspect anything.
When our property was inspected by M.O.E. the girl could not even read a topo map. We had to point out that the “environmentally sensitive water shed area” she was claiming was in the north east corner and not the south west corner of the property.
She had the map upside down.
… ah, owl, the EPA is a Conservative creation as is the mandatory twisty mercury bulbs
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2006/04/20/mulroney060420.html
Many years back an infrequent change of government down east
resulted in the patronage appointment of a new game warden.
Meeting the new appointee on the main street of their small village, another
local casualty of the switch in government offered his congratulations:
“Well, Jack, it’s a slut of a job, but it suits you!”
The same could apparently be said as well about sawmill harassers.
.
Let’s analyze.
-Sawdust is a pollutant
-Therefore ‘dust’ is a pollutant
-Most household ‘dust’ is dead skin cells from humans.
-Therefore, Humans are a pollutant.
Now isn’t that really what the issue here is? Human simply have to be gotten rid of so Gaia can enjoy a pollution free spin in space.
Now, about those volcanoes and desert storms.
wadda expect folks?
You elected these clowns…
wadda expect folks?
You elected these clowns…
I am not in the least surprised that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment considers sawdust to be a pollutant. If carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant–the world’s most dangerous, according to the AGW crowd–what is not a pollutant?
Actually, the article was heartening, in a melancholy way: The sawmill owners and their community did not passively stand by and let themselves be bullied by the envirothugs. They pushed back . . . peacefully, as our side is wont to do, but pushed back nevertheless. The enviroleft can no longer count on being able to bully their way through the body politic.
I’m guessing these morons drove up from downtown Toronto and were so appalled they couldn’t find a place to buy a skim milk soy latte – made of course from free trade organic coffee beans, that they welcomed the crowd that turned them away.
Ontario is so fek’d . all the dulton greenie Feed In Tariff multi-billion boondoggle and now the snivel servant morons trying to take jobs away from hard working Canadians.
Stand strong, do not give in. Make it a media issue.
Hats off to that ‘peaceful’ crowd that supported the mill owners!!
No more passivity. Canadians are waking up!
Kate, this is huge news!!
It was a group of landowners in that area that organised against the windmill invasion in that area as well.
Applause!!!
They are paper tigers!! They came on a friends place to impose a tax based on how many taps/hose bibs, he had on his property. Property that he owns which were drawing from wells that he dug. He ran them off the property and told them never to come back. All was well on the family farm.
Shades of Ayn Rand. There must have been a few John Galts in the crowd.
Ontario trees drop several powers of 10 more ‘pollutants’ into the waterways and on the ground every fall. Does it mean we need a clear cut or fire?
From the article:
“They don’t seem to care about the rural areas. They shut us down and what does everybody do, they go on welfare. Is that what they want?”
That is precisely what they want. Gotta maintain that dependent underclass to generate the Liberal votes.
Living in Caves. Al GORE SEE YOU THERE. bring your own cattle. To each is own buddy- no redistribution of cattle is not allowed or unless permitted by owner.
Bring your own broom, no servants available.
I have had experience with these people. They would come on my property to inspect my lake waterfront as they had declared the weeds an area that could not be touched. Had to tell them that they could not do this without my lawyer present and they stopped.
In Canada, there is no need for Government to get a warrant to come on your property
Talnik nails it @ 11:12. Good for the Landowner’s Association.
We need more John Galts.
That reminds me, what is Suzuki’s mailing address again?
Lumber mills do not generate prosperity. Only government committees and regulations do that.
As Adam Smith explained centuries ago, bureaucracy is the source of all wealth. These nasty polluting mills and factories are just rent seekers, parasitically feeding off of hard-working government paper shufflers and exploiting oppressed mill workers.
I have no doubt the MOE will arrive at 2AM some day soon with SWAT or whatever alphabet soup acronym the cops use in Lambton. Uppity proles need to be shown who’s the boss.
At which point, I’d encourage every single saw mill in Ontario to cease production. Just stop. Stay the hell home and go on welfare.
Nobody -needs- to be in the sawmill business, right?
Liberal polcies driving companies out of business, gee why am I not surprised the enviro thugs are targeting mom and pop shops.
Small sawmills have a habit of flying below the radar. The big operations have no choice but to abide by safe work regulations, and environmental standards. The small operations have a track record of picking up, and leaving behind a mess that taxpayers will have to pay to clean up.
Sawdust has been known to destroy small streams. Where I was born, many small streams had just started to recover, after decades of being devoid of fish. It will also inhibit vegetation for many years at old log brow sites.
I’m no fan of government environmental agencies. I’ve had to deal with their meddling in the oil patch for over 20 years. The problem with this story is the overreaction. What do these folks have to hide? Every sawmill has sawdust in the air, and they aren’t being shut down. This little operation seems to be trying to deflect attention, and I have to assume there’s something happening that isn’t good for the rest of us. It might be safety, or environment, but something is amiss.
coach:
If, as the article claims, inspectors have shut down eight sawmills recently, concern and perhaps healthy paranoia is warranted.
Shell Oil was planning to construct a huge new refinery, and the final two sites selected were one in Texas and one at Corunna just south of Sarnia in Lambton county. The Corunna site had all the economic advantages: they have an existing refinery and petro-chemical facility already in place with its existing infrastructure and unused land. It is situated on the St. Clair river with existing, but small, docking facilities. It is at the terminal point of what was once called the Interprovincial pipeline which supplies crude oil from Alberta. This would give them access to upgraded crude bitumen from the five upgraders that are slated to be built at their Scottford refining complex in Alberta. (One has been completed, the others are on hold awaiting approval of the Keystone pipeline to Texas.) They already have pipelines buried under the river which supply refined products to markets in Michigan and other mid-western U.S. states. Everything was right for Corunna to get this project except for the political atmosphere. This project would have required hundreds of thousands of construction manhours, provided permanent employment for hundreds of people, and contributed considerable tax dollars to the Canadian, Ontario, and Lambton County economies. The site in Texas was selected because Shell did not feel that the political atmosphere was conducive to the capital investment required. They were concerned about the present and future environmental restrictions placed on them by the McGuinty government. They were uncertain of the Ontario government’s future tax policies and they were concerned over the intrusive regulatory activism of local and provincial bureaucracies. In short, they felt they weren’t welcome in Ontario. This decision, and the reasoning behind it, are an open secret within the Alberta oil industry. The project went to Texas. Hooray for the McGuinty government and its anti-business and its over zealous environmental programs. As a former Ontario resident and now Albertan redneck, I can only say thank you to McGuinty. Shell continues to expand its Scottford facility, the remaining four upgraders will be built as well as another by Total just down the road. Suncor and Syncrude have major expansion projects on the books. Dow Chemical has closed their Sarnia facility, which was huge and provided substantial employment, and moved it to Alberta where it is expanding. Others will follow suit. Soon southern Ontario will be a pristine vista populated only with organic farms and the people required to run them. (Pristine except for the monstrous windmills destroying the landscape.) So all you displaced workers can move to Alberta. But please do it slowly since the infrastructure costs are huge. (The province is contemplating a brand new city outside Fort McMurray since that city, which now numbers over eighty thousand, has run out of building room.) There’s lots of work. There must be since I, at seventy years of age, have just been tempted out of retirement because companies are willing to pay me over a hundred grand a for six months work simply because they can’t find qualified people. And the beauty of this is I have a choice of where and when I want to work and for how long at a stretch. Ah, the wonderfulness of being one of the only provinces open for business.
Until the truth speakers (and they are few) are willing to agressively attack the eco-lobby and take the inevitable slings and barbs that must come with such daring, the environment will continue to be the left’s second best weapon (behind abortion on demand)
rabbit- It’s likely the sawmills that were shut down amounted to a two person mobile unit, powered by a PTO on a pickup truck. The definition of a sawmill is fairly broad. As I said, some of these small operations aren’t held accountable for the mess they leave behind. If the mill in question has 20 employees, it’s only reasonable they need to show a willingness to comply with safety and environmental standards. Employees of small operations have very little recourse, if they’re injured on the job. They end up on the government dole, because their employer simply picks up, and disappears. There are two sides to this story.
U gonna be rich Powell!
We’re doing our best to shut the doors for business here in Saskatchewan. We’re one NDP government away from utopia.
“What do these folks have to hide? Every sawmill has sawdust in the air, and they aren’t being shut down.”
HA! Yeah they are. Sawdust is a carcinogen now, didn’t you know? Its an eeeeevile particulate poison. MOE is shutting down outfits that have -any- dust in the air. At all. Ever.
We’re not talking hundreds of tons of bark, wood dust and cuttings left to rot in giant piles here dude. We’re talking white glove treatment. If you can -smell- wood, its too dusty.
I have a 2hp cyclone on my table saw. It wouldn’t pass. You have to suck the stuff right off the blade and run it through a HEPA filter.
Welcome to Ontario.
Back in the mid 60s, there was a large hardwood sawmill in Huntsville, Ontario. Outside, there were several very large piles of sawdust which posed a disposal problem for the mill. Seeing an opportunity, my father designed and built a plant on the Magnetawan River to convert the sawdust into charcoal.
My guess is that should that opportunity have been recognized 20 years later, my father would still be waiting for permits.
Dry sawdust is not the same as the sawdust in a sawmill. The sawmill particulates are much larger, and they’re wet. I could spend a week in a sawmill without a single sneeze, but one cut of a kiln dried 2×4 makes chokes me up in minutes.
Sawmill cuttings won’t even burn without a special burner. Thousands of farmers use it every day without any problems. It’s used in the oil patch for soaking up spills. There are no restrictions on it, that I know of, in Alberta.
Our eco zealots’ idea of a perfect world is both pollution and job free.
coach,
Did you notice that all furniture is now made of saw dust?
They in China figured that wood is a PITA to shape, so they grind wood, mix with glue and shape that furniture which is sold at Ikea and Walmart.
Only in Canada sawdust is a problem. The rest of the world think of it as a resource.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Powell Lucas, that was a good read, and thanks for posting it, but it would have been a lot easier to read had it been broken into paragraphs.
If it was properly formatted, and the formatting got broken in the posting process, my apologies.
I am really beginning to be embarrassed by my province of birth. Seeing sawdust as a pollutant is especially perplexing as the university I first attended gave out degrees in forestry. I wonder if they still do or maybe they switched to “environmental studies” to ensure a supply of future government inspectors.
Coach wrote:
If the mill in question has 20 employees, it’s only reasonable they need to show a willingness to comply with safety and environmental standards. Employees of small operations have very little recourse, if they’re injured on the job. They end up on the government dole, because their employer simply picks up, and disappears. There are two sides to this story.
With all die respect did you even read the article. This company has been in business for some 40 years hardly a fly by night enterprise. As to the public dole crack, you are aware of the exorbitant Workers Compensation taxes that this employer is paying right, that according to the article NO ONE has had to collect from, because they haven`t had any accidents on the job….
I also take offence to that old tired ìf you have nothing to hide whats the problem.
If you were stopped by the police while in your car and ordered to drop your pants to have your anal sections checked for smuggling drugs would that be an issue…..after all whats the big deal you have nothing to hide…
canuck66 Naw, your dad would press them into wood pellets and sell them to the Harrowsmith readers with the wood heaters.
You got the headline wrong. They don’t really want us all living in caves. They want only a few of us to live in caves. The vast majority of us they want dead.
Thanks for the hat tip, but it weren’t me, unless there’s another Louise.
I know who my REAL friends are. the farmers of Ontario.
I’m on side.
sawdust pressed into pellets makes good in horse stalls:-))))
coach is the same dude making “dune coon” comments the other day, I’m thinking his inner reality is starting to express. One can only hide one’s true self for so long.
coach said: “Dry sawdust is not the same as the sawdust in a sawmill.” Yes, I know. I’ve been in a freakin’ sawmill before.
Do you think facts matter to government nitwits when they make regulations? They’ll put this guy out of business in the blink of an eye by demanding he install a million dollars worth of -additional- dust handling, and probably tack some fines on there because the Workmen’s Comp posters aren’t hung at regulation height. His sole defense then is to shut down forever.
Hence the dandy flash crowd. Dalton can erect 80 ft tall windmills 500 meters from my house at whim, but a 40 year old sawmill has to have guardian angels to stay in business? We are getting tired of it.
This is the for-real deal my friend. This ain’t Alberta, this is the devil’s vest pocket here, Ontari-ari-o. Ground zero for everything that is CRAP about Canada except Bill 101. And Alberta is ONE ELECTION AWAY from us. Liberals win, and you get the same.
Tom Pain at 4:20pm has it right. They don’t want us living in caves. They want us dead and buried in caves where the smell won’t bother them.
Coach, like I told the IHSA (Infrastructure Health and Safety Asso.) and regional Ontario Labor Board reps today at our annual due diligence and cover your a– meeting (safety meeting for short).
“Rules and regulations didn’t build this country hard work did.”, and for once guys spoke up instead of complaining behind the backs of those trying to convince intelligent people the s— sandwich they are being fed isn’t s—.
It’s about time there is some push back, common sense in business and the work place has almost been regulated to death in this province, and I do believe the race to a “perfect” world here is an industry in itself when it comes to bureaucracies,it’s minions with really good pensions – benefits, and a big rule book.
And if you think a river or stream has been neglected in this province lately it’s highly unlikely since Ocean and Fisheries have had their nose stuck in about every farmers business for the last ten years, and don’t even mention the Endangered Species Act, I think that just came out a year or so ago.
I was actually at a preconstruction meeting where a farmer was told a section of his property was considered environmentally sensitive, and until then he had no idea.
It’s to bad it’s always the little guy showing some gut’s, if bigger businesses would show some honest principles, and quit having expensive butt kissing lunches with some minister or another maybe things would balance out quicker, instead of being insanely one sided.
To repeat “Tom Pain at 4:20pm has it right. They don’t want us living in caves. They want us dead and buried in caves where the smell won’t bother them”.
Another sad fact is that even if Hudak is elected, the fact of these moronic bureaucrats running around most likely will not change, as bureaucracies once created stick like dried pig poop to a 1/2 ton box.
Some author could rewrite Atlas Shrugged and use Ontario, as well as a number of other jurisdictions, as the plot set.
I’m a little confused. Is this a site where people come to express opinions, and read others? Or is it a place for people with failed blog sites to come and try to impress the host, in hopes of being thrown a crumb?
Go visit the ontariolandowners dot ca website to read more stories like this. And click the crown land patents link to learn about those valuable pieces of paper.