A couple months removed from awarding Jeff Wesley with a ‘Shame Award’, Water Wells First is now praising the Wallaceburg Councillor.
Kevin Jakubec, the spokesperson for Water Wells First, also thanked Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton for writing the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) about water well testing in Chatham-Kent.
“Water Wells First wants to thank Mayor Hope and MPP Monte McNaughton for both writing to Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Glen Murray to ask for all costs to be reimbursed for the legal chain of custody water testing that Water Wells First strongly recommended and still recommends to everyone in Chatham-Kent to take before pile driving starts for wind turbine foundations,” Jakubec stated in a press release.
“Water Wells First would like to extend a special congratulations and job well done to Councillor Jeff Wesley for persisting with helping in seeing these costs are rightly reimbursed by the MOECC. We at Water Wells First recognized that we may have gotten off to a bad start with Councillor Wesley but we appreciate his determination to see the aquifer underlying north Chatham-Kent remains undisturbed and stays in its natural, pristine state.”
Jakubec added: “This is the first baby step in getting the obvious and now documented vibration sensitive Aquifer and the underlying Black Shale bedrock high in Arsenic, Mercury, Lead and Uranium designated a Protected Water Source and prohibited from having any pile driven foundations from any structures.”
Jakubec said he also is encouraging the local politicians to write to Ontario’s Minister of Health and to the Ontario Medical Officer to bring their resources into the mix.
“To determine the health risk extent to the families of Dover Township,” Jakubec said.
“Dr. William Sawyer a toxicologist, who was an expert witness in the North Kent 1 Environmental Tribunal, provided numerous studies to the MOECC and the Chatham-Kent legal department that a long-term risk for higher malignancy rates exists from water laden with Black Shale.”
Jakubec said Water Wells First is calling an immediate meeting of its members to discuss this “excellent step forward” and says they will be prepared to assist in the forms and paperwork from the MOECC to all those who took the tests to get their money back.
Jakubec said Bruce Harman, MOECC’s senior hydrogeologist from their London office, is set to be invited to their meeting.
“To give us an update in the progress of the MOECC’s investigation of continuing well interference in Dover Township,” he said.
“Water Wells First recognizes this one little step forward, is but one avenue available in designating the entire aquifer in North Chatham-Kent as a protected water source. The other avenue available is to mount public pressure on the owners of the North Kent and Otter Creek windfarms to protect our water source, families and properties.”
For more information from the group, visit: waterwellsfirst.org
– Photo credit: Aaron Hall
