Gravel mining is the pits

Points to consider in your letter:

• The Ontario government must impose an immediate moratorium on all new gravel mining approvals in Ontario, including site plan amendments for mining below the water table or that increase licensed tonnages.
• Gravel mining is not a benign activity. It destroys the natural environment and changes communities forever. Gravel is a finite resource and while still in the ground it supports productive farmland, wetlands and species-at-risk habitat, groundwater filtration, flood mediation and other natural services. 
• The government already authorizes the gravel mining industry to extract from the 5000+ existing licensed gravel mining sites in Ontario 13 times more gravel each year than is required to meet average annual consumption. Gravel mining consumes an average of 5,000 additional acres of land in Ontario each year. Natural heritage and agricultural land, once mined for aggregates, can’t be restored to the same productivity it had before.
• The permitting process for gravel mining is tilted in favour of the aggregate extraction industry, a sector dominated by multinational corporations headquartered far away from the damage caused in Ontario. Community residents find themselves pitted against these corporations and the current provincial government policy in David vs. Goliath struggles. They are forced to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to retain lawyers, planners and technical experts, spending countless hours learning complex planning, transportation, hydrogeology, air quality, noise, blasting and other technical specialties.
• Gravel mining applications are approved without the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Nations that the constitution requires.
• For all these reasons it is important to impose a moratorium on all new gravel mining approvals; convene an independent panel of experts to conduct a broad consultation process — including thorough consultation with Indigenous Nations whose rights may be impacted, affected communities, independent experts and scientists — and chart a new path forward for gravel mining. This path must prevent greater climate chaos, protect groundwater and farmland, increases the weight of local perspectives in land use planning, ensures long term supplies of a finite resource and honours treaties and obligations with Indigenous Nations, as prescribed in the constitution.