A controversial proposal to locate an asphalt plant in a quarry went before residents of Upper Tantallon once again on Wednesday night.
Scotian Materials, a Dartmouth, N.S.-based company that owns the Tote Road quarry in the Head of St. Margaret’s Bay area, led an open house discussion about locating a mobile plant there that isn’t permitted by current land use regulations.
The session was hosted by the Halifax Regional Municipality.
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“So what we’re specifically looking for is to put an asphalt plant in our quarry,” Scotian Materials president Robert MacPherson told a full house audience.
The company first presented its application to locate the plant there to the Halifax Regional Municipality in April 2015.
“The proposal that we’ve received is to amend the local planning strategy and the land use by-law,” said Tiffany Chase, a communications advisor with Halifax Regional Municipality.
Any requests for amendments to such strategies must go through a public consultation.
The first public session was held in Upper Tantallon in June 2015 and was met with widespread concern from residents.
MacPherson has provided extensive background information on the application through the Scotian Materials website.
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All of the concerns raised in the June 2015 session were taken seriously and he hired a consultant company, Golder Associates, to conduct an environmental assessment study, he said.
The findings of that study are public and MacPherson said they contain no cause for alarm with respects to concerns like emissions and water quality impact.
But the assessment still doesn’t sit well with some, like Tantallon resident Ashley Ells.
“[I have] a lot of experience in analytics, you can make figures what you want to make them,” she said.
“I’m concerned about air quality, water quality, we’re all on wells out here there’s no municipal water. So there’s all kinds of concerns in my opinion,” Ells said.
Not everyone, however, is against the project.
‘Work for the next guy’
“I’m hoping that they get it because it’s work for me, it’s work for the next guy,” said Roger Broderick, a contractor who’s worked for Scotian Materials before.
He feels too many people are forming their opposition to the application based on misinformation.
“I just feel that people, all they’re doing is talking to other people who don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said.
The municipality will gather all feedback from the open house sessions and present its findings to regional council.
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