Burlington to give musician Sarah Harmer key to the city as her fight against quarry expansion continues

Saira Peesker · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 11, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

As singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer prepares to person the symbolic key to the City of Burlington – successful ample portion for her enactment successful a combat against quarry enlargement connected Mount Nemo – the destiny of that quarry is presently successful the hands of the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).

Harmer volition beryllium honoured by her hometown astatine a ceremonial astatine the Burlington Performing Arts Centre connected April 16 astatine 7 p.m. The honour follows her Humanitarian Award, which she received at the 2025 Juno Awards successful March.

The grant "recognizes an outstanding Canadian creator oregon manufacture person whose humanitarian contributions person positively enhanced the societal cloth of Canada and/or whose interaction tin beryllium felt worldwide."

"In 2005, Harmer co-founded Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), to halt a monolithic crushed stone quarry connected Mount Nemo, portion of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve," states the Junos' website.

"In 2012, PERL played a cardinal relation astatine the Ontario Joint Board hearing, stopping Lafarge/Nelson Aggregates from destroying endangered taxon habitats, important headwater wetlands, and harmless and abundant drinking water."

Harmer's parents ain onshore successful the vicinity of the quarry, which is adjacent to the Mount Nemo Conservation Area, and she grew up there.

The quarry, owned by Nelson Aggregates, is located connected the Niagara Escarpment successful agrarian northbound Burlington, connected 2 Sideroad betwixt Cedar Springs Road and Guelph Line. 

The connection presently earlier the OLT is the company's 2nd effort successful the past 20 years to grow its footprint. 

The OLT hearing started March 4 and is scheduled for 60 proceeding days. 

On Thursday, time 22 of the hearing, Harmer was 1 of dozens of observers watching the proceedings. The proceeding volition present testimony from experts supporting some Nelson Aggregates, the institution looking to expand, section municipalities and the section advocates warring against the expansion.

Harmer, who wrote the opus Escarpment Blues based connected this situation, says she got progressive successful the contented done her mom, and is passionate astir protecting the earthy world.

"We enactment a gathering unneurotic successful 2005 and person been focused for galore years connected protecting the good water, endangered species, cleanable air, and each the things we request to survive," she told CBC Radio's Here and Now successful precocious March.

Endangered salamander lives successful the country adjacent quarry

The institution first applied to grow successful 2004 and was yet denied by Ontario's Consolidated Hearings Board (Joint Board) successful 2012 connected the ground that "Nelson had not made capable proviso for the extortion of these unsocial ecologic and environmentally delicate areas" and would encroach connected situation for the Jefferson salamander, an endangered taxon that resides successful the area. 

In May 2020, it submitted a caller exertion to expand. The caller connection would grow the quarry into a tract southbound of the existing tract and into the Burlington Springs Golf and Country Club to the west. 

In summation to the salamander habitat, section residents person concerns astir stone blasting occurring person to their homes and person to 2 adjacent pipelines, arsenic good arsenic the biology interaction of other motortruck postulation and the imaginable for the cognition to impact the quantity and prime of the groundwater that feeds their wells. 

The City of Burlington has expressed akin concerns. Its assembly unanimously passed a sharply worded question past twelvemonth requesting the state contradict Nelson's proposal. 

The proponents for the task person vowed to support earthy practice and groundwater, and said the bully from the quarry would outweigh the bad.

In an 2021 interrogation with CBC Hamilton, spokesperson Kevin Powers said the worldly to beryllium extracted from the quarry, known arsenic dolostone, is successful abbreviated proviso and is needed to physique roads and bridges. 

"It is the highest-strength limestone you tin get successful Ontario… Where we would similar to excavation is 1 of the fewer areas successful Ontario that is licensed and acceptable speech for the extraction of this resource."

40 witnesses volition talk implicit 60 days

The OLT proceeding is expected to wrapper up successful mid-June, says Gord Pinard, a subordinate of Conserving our Rural Ecosystems, 1 of the advocacy groups that has lasting successful the proceedings. The radical has the proceeding docket and a nexus to the online proceedings connected its website.

Pinard says astir 40 witnesses are expected successful the adjacent respective weeks. Thursday's proceedings focused connected the enactment done by Dr. Bev Wicks, an ecologist contracted by the quarry to enactment its proposal. 

"She is covering 1 of the precise important topics," said Pinard. Thursday's transverse introspection related to the prime of the information Wicks based her assumptions on, and revealed that immoderate was obtained by trespassing and was withdrawn by a erstwhile witness.

Pinard said he's hoping to get arsenic galore eyes connected the proceeding arsenic possible.

"Our concerns [are] astir h2o quality, and aerial quality, and information of the assemblage with blasting and trucking, and the earthy environment, including provincially important wetlands, woodlands and endangered species," helium said.