Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

"Wow. Stunned. Ecstatic.

Those were among the words used by astonished community leaders when Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin announced the province had issued an unprecedented order halting St. Marys Cement’s attempt to open a massive limestone quarry northeast of Carlisle.

McMeekin said the province was responding to widespread concern about potential harm to groundwater supplying wells, wetlands and streams. The order declares the 150-hectare site on the 11th Concession at Milburough Line must remain zoned “rural and conservation management” in perpetuity.

It’s a big win for Friends of Rural Communities and the Environment, a private citizens group that argued the plan posed an unacceptable threat to environmentally sensitive land and the water beneath it.

It’s an equally stunning setback for St. Marys, Canadian subsidiary of the Brazilian giant Votorantim Cimentos, and for Ontario’s politically powerful stone, sand and gravel industry, which strives to keep land available for aggregate extraction.

St. Marys says, since it bought the property from Lowndes Holdings in 2006, it has spent $20 million on efforts to rezone it and obtain a quarry licence.

A small crowd, most of whom assembled without knowing what was coming, burst into applause as the MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale delivered the news at a lectern in the bright sunshine outside his Waterdown riding office yesterday."